Backyard, oh you beautiful thing~

We have an amazing backyard... it has just about everything we had desired: a nice concrete patch for the girls to ride their vehicles, a big open grass area for soccer and other tumbles, a nice yet ackward sprinkler system, pre-made veggie beds, mature fruit trees (fruit bearing.. apricot, grapes and two oranges), exhilaratingly aromatic roses, a shed and a great spot for a compost.

I have spent the better part of two weeks going through the backyard, weeding, mowing, edging, debudding roses, and giving the oversized plants a good trim.

Apricot..
Was one of my first victims, some of the branches had major wounds and were almost touching the floor. The way I saw it, I was amputating sick limbs that had the potential of draining the apricot's energy. I happen to love apricots, so I wanted to make sure we had nice, juicy, big fruits. Here are the before and after...

From Primer Dia Monhegan Way

From White Monhegan

Grass...
Dethatching has been quite a task, as I started it by hand at the edge.. there was more than 5 inches of accumulated grass trimmings! I have now quit the hand method and am considering more aggressive approaches to it. Haven't decided if I want to aerate it first and hose-dethatch or if I want to hire the job out and get it done now.

When I edged the lawn, it uncovered a few snail colonies... to be honest, I don't know if snails live in colonies or not, but it sure looked like it! I'm talking about bunches of snails in groups of about 15-20 snails piled on top of one another! Yuck!

Grapevine...
I cut back the grapevine pretty much to the stump. Tim prays every day that it live through my aggressive methods... I'm pretty sure it will be just fine, although it might take some more work. It needs training as it was left to its own devices. I'm thinking about a trellis that goes up the hill and uses some of that space to grow. I'm salivating with the idea of a good grape harvest as I tasted some of the fruit and it was deliciously sweet.

Some of the branches buried themselves and rooted themselves, we'll see how it starts growing.





Fruit? Flowers? Buh-bye!
I have taken out one of the hedges but am thinking about doing the same to a second one. Tim and I are of one mind.. if it doesn't bear food, has a great aroma or looks wonderful, it should serve a purpose or it doesn't have a place in our backyard. So long, useless hedges!

Veggie beds...
Right above the end of the grass, there are some veggie beds, covered with wonderfully black yummy looking dirt. I was so excited about these, it's a good size lineup!

From Monhegan Way

Yesterday when I was ready to plant the recovered strawberries from our last house, I started to loosen the soil and lo and behold, disappointment. There was about 1 inch of rich soil, then it was filled with landfill.. yes landfill. Pieces of concrete and building trash. After a couple of hours of useless labor, I quit that idea and planted them elsewhere. I think digging is not the way to go, I think I'll have to obtain topsoil and fill them up instead.