Thread: Getting started

Today we planted a Celeste fig tree and four different varieties of high
bush blueberries in our backyard. Good thing we were prepared to mix up
some decent soil. Turns out our whole backyard is nothing but a mix of
clay and sand, in other words, fill dirt. Most likely to meet the 500
year flood plain rules.

We mixed up some cow manure composted with pine bark and peat moss to
fill in around the blueberries and, to a certain extent, the fig tree.
With the fig we mixed up a lot of the fill dirt with some composted cow
manure and just a little bit of peat moss. The clay will likely hold
water like a steel pot so we will have to watch that our plants don't drown.

Next step is to build a four by sixteen foot raised bed garden, for
which we will mix up a soil recommended by the original Square Foot
Gardener. We will also have a four by four foot raised bed off to one
side for me to raise culinary herbs in.

We are forgoing any other fruit trees at the moment but will eventually
put in a kumquat and maybe a three-in-one pear tree. Debating whether to
rip out the six-year old live oak in the front yard and replace it with
a fruit tree or not. Not a lot you can do with such a small lot. We are
looking forward to replacing the front hedge and low plantings with
something like Mexican bush cherry, which grows about four or five feet
high and then planting Rainbow chard at the foot of that. Most folks
won't know that the bush cherry actually grows edible cherries and that
chard is actually a well-liked green.

We're slowly getting this place into the order we want and still have
lots of boxes to unpack. Finding a place to put stuff is a problem,
either that or we just have to much stuff. We have a couple of big boxes
that are going soon to our church charity building. Someone else may
have more use for somethings than we do.

Luckily we have enough canned and frozen vegetables to carry us for a
year, not to mention beau coup jams, jellies, and marmalades.

We hope all are staying warm in the Southern Canada area of the US of A
and also the other places that are cold now. Temps hit 78F here
yesterday and today and probably tomorrow. Tilly Dawg laid in a sunbeam
and snored while we were working and then got busy chasing some birds
away that were sitting on the fence watching. Rascals were probably
hoping we would put a seed in the ground that they could eat.

George, Miz Anne, and Tilly Dawg