gardening weekend

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Well, after 7 trips to the city department of public works for free compost and mulch, 2 trips to Lowe's for hoses, grass seed, mulch, top soil, and peat moss, one surprise trip to my parents' house to borrow their rototiller (my dad thought it was stolen because my sister forgot to tell him that we stopped by and I didn't email him to update him on the situation), and one trip to Eastern Market for herbs and veggies, we were set to begin our gardening adventures of 2008.



Here's a before picture of our garden from Thursday night:







And, here it is today.







We made lots of improvements to the garden this year: better planting organization, a better balance of plants (we hope), a new trellis for the climbing sugar snap peas, mulch in between each row to cut down on weeds, and a new irrigation system set up with 2 soaker hoses. We're hoping this new watering system will cut down on watering time and wasted water.



This year we planted tomatoes, red, green, and yellow peppers, zucchini, eggplant, cucumbers, bush beans, sugar snap peas, lettuce, celery, onions, and garlic. And because we organized the garden better, we were able to leave one row for a cutting garden with daisies, snap dragons, zinnias, lychnis, gallardia, black-eyed susans and coneflowers. I can't wait to have fresh flowers inside this summer!








And, I have my herb garden set up this year. I think I made better plant choices this year for the herbs, so hopefully I'll be able to use them all for cooking. I planted dill, oregano, basil, cilantro, rosemary, chives, mint and shiso (perilla).








Here's our next project for the summer...turning this flower bed into a japanese garden. Jon's in search of cocoa shell mulch, pea gravel, a stone lantern and a stone water basin. I transplanted the coral bells and astilbe from this flower bed to our front garden and left him two ferns, a pine tree that he's training into a life-sized bonsai plant and a bleeding heart. He's got big plans for this space!



It took us about two months to get to this point in our yard maintenance last year, so it feels great to get the majority of it finished in one weekend! Next weekend, we'll be planting some annuals and mulching the rest of the flower beds in the front yard...easy peasy!






And, with all this work this weekend, we also managed to fit in a trip to the Ann Arbor Book Fair to see Jon's erhu teacher, XD Wei play. We spoke with her husband afterward and he complimented Jon on how well he plays. He told Jon that on the easier songs, sometimes he can't tell if it's Jon or his wife playing. Yay! Jon is so talented and dedicated to practicing, so this was such a nice compliment for him!



15 comments

  1. Will Jon ever have an online concert of sorts?

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  2. Wow, that was a lot of trips to the public works and Lowes, they probably got to know you real well!:) Garden looks great, all those veggies sound delicous.

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  3. Nice work! Your garden looks lovely and it looks like you are going to have a great summer full of fresh veggies and herbs.

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  4. You can tell by the pictures that you take a lot of pride inyour gardening. You should be proud of what you have growing on.

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  5. your garden looks great! that's a whole lot of work for a weekend.
    I see you are reading the glass castle. what do you think of it, I'd be curious to know.

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  6. I am so impressed with your gardening goals. Everything looks like it's going to be great.

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  7. Wow, your garden looks great. It sounds like you will have a bountiful harvest this year!
    Okay, so next weekend (or maybe next, next weekend since we are going camping Memorial Day) Adam and I are planning to brew some ginger beer and root beer. That way if one doesn't work out hopefully the other will.
    Let you know how that goes!
    I can't wait to see what you do for a Japanese garden. It should be very interesting.

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  8. I feel so inspired now to try my hand at gardening! Even if I do kill most plants that come my way. We're thinking of building a box for a vegetable garden, but we don't know how difficult/expensive that will be... And I'm not entirely sure that this is the best year to get started since we have a newborn. But still, seeing how much can be accomplished in one weekend is very inspirational!

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  9. Your garden looks great. Don't you love having fresh herbs? I use cilantro and basil on a daily basis, I love them both.

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  10. WOW! it looks awesome and you guys sure are ambitious! it is TOTALLY worth it. can't wait to see the Japanese garden!!

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  11. Wow, you were super busy this weekend. It looks great, and looks like you will have tons of really yummy vegies this summer. I can't wait to get room to plat a garden. I love all the pots of fresh herbs!

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  12. I always wondered what that thing was called. There is a man who plays an ehru, during busy lunch times at the end of a pedestrian underspass near my work. A complicated description, but all the sounds combined , Busy people, ehru and echoing underpass, make me wish I was a sound artist or suchlike. It sounds awesome.

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  13. Great post, In some occasion we need flowers to make the situation more romantic, natural and comfortable. In the wedding usually we see there are many beautiful flowers decorate in every edge of the ceremony.

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  14. i'm so jealous of your and jon's green thumb. nice work.

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  15. Hey! Your garden was very beautiful... I love gardening and I would like to make my garden as beautiful as yours, so that we can have nice weekends over there.

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