What's happening?

So I dropped off the radar for a bit, and you better believe I was very busy during that time.  It's spring, and my kids and my garden are my life.  Here's what's happening:

The dwarf peach and pear trees (along the north side of the backyard) are doing quite well.  You can see in the background that Handy Freddy has been really busy making the vegetable garden border.

Along the south side of the yard, I added a Golden Delicious apple tree...

...and a Honeycrisp apple tree. Both are dwarf varieties from Stark Bros.

I planted those a few weeks ago, and they already have leaves. Awesome!

Between the start-of-the-season sale at Spring Bluff Nursery and the Conservation Foundation benefit, I acquired two new flowering shrubs and several native perennial flowers for the two butterfly gardens.  One is located in the NW corner of the yard under a honeylocust tree...

...while some others are in the SW corner of the yard.  I'm hoping the flowers will attract butterflies and bees, which will help with the pollination of my vegetable plants. I certainly don't want a repeat of last year's pumpkin sex incident. 

Next to the SW flower patch I installed two strawberry patches.  The variety on the left is the June-bearer Surecrop.  To the right (on the other side of the white trellis) is the Ever-bearer Ozark Beauty.  Strawberry beds are good for three years or so, and while they can take a year to get established I am really hoping for a few berries this season.

I put the broccoli seedlings in along the west side of the yard.  Hopefully these will do well and be ready for harvest in June or early July.  If so, I can start another round of broccoli seedlings in June, and plant them in mid-July for a fall crop.  Broccoli for everyone! 

Also in the ground are some carrots, beets and peas.  I hope to get the kale, sage and dill in the garden after work today, and I've set aside a large portion of this upcoming weekend to get some more things in the ground. 

What's been happening in your neck of the woods?

My work is cut out for me

Spring is here, and I can finally get started on the garden I've been planning since last summer.  But first, the garden beds need a lot of work before they are ready for seedlings.  Actually, the whole backyard needs a ton of work before anything can happen. My to-do list is long...very, very long!

As you can see, the weeds took advantage of the ridiculously warm summer-like weather we had in March, and are already taking over my vegetable beds:

Obviously, I need to spend a good amount of time weeding the beds before they can be tilled.

And I finally gave in to my OCD tendencies and purchased landscaping timber to border the garden beds.  This will give us a clear border between garden and lawn, making it easier for The Big Guy to mow and trim, and better protecting my precious vegetable plants.  Thanks to Handy Freddy for picking up the lumber!

Once the garden beds are weeded and tilled, I'll install the border. Here, I put three sections of the timber together so you can get an idea of where I'm going with this:

I have a few peony plants coming up on the north side of the house, and I need to get some mulch around them before The Big Guy accidentally mows them down.  In which case, I will accidentally punch him in the throat. It happens, right?

Note to The Big Guy: This is what a peony plant looks like. Do not run it over!

In fact, all of the flower beds need to be mulched, as do all the fruit trees.  Add that to the list!

The compost bins (all three of them) are 2/3 full.  I need to do some rearranging of the piles to make room for all of the stuff that will be coming its way in the next few months.

Gasp! See that bed of weeds in the foreground of the picture?  That's where my asparagus is planted.  Weeding is making several appearances on my garden to-do list.

Item #458 on the to-do list is to hook up this rain barrel.  I am the proud owner of two rain barrels, but this one (that I got for my birthday last fall...thanks, Big Guy!) needs to be connected to the downspout.  I'm searching online for a fancy connector that will let me switch back and forth between directing water to the rain barrel and keeping it moving through the downspout, so if you have any sources, please let me know in the comments.  Thanks!

Add to the list cleaning out the gutters, making the trellises, and on and on and on, and I have a very busy spring ahead of me.   I can't wait!

Spring dreaming on such a winter's day

It's been a cold, yet relatively snow-less, winter here in Aurora. Though that changed late last night and early this morning with 4+ inches of the white stuff.  No matter, though. My thoughts have been less on the brown grass and white snow, and more on the colorful garden I want in my backyard for this spring, summer and fall. 

Planning for this garden began last year, in the midst of last year's garden adventure. As I was growing and tending, I was thinking about what else I wanted to try.  And I'm happy to report that Little Guy has been planning right along with me.  We read gardening books and magazines, pore over the vegetable pictures, and pick what new things we'd like to plant. It's been a lot of fun!  We are particularly excited about planting eggplants and potatoes this year, just so you know.

I've gotten a few seed/plant catalogs in the mail, but so far the Seed Savers Exchange has been my favorite. They have a great variety of heirloom and organic seeds, with beautiful pictures and detailed instructions for all the seeds and plants they offer. You can request your catalog here. I've ordered several packets of seeds, including Detroit Dark Red beets, King of the North peppers, and Dragon carrots. I can't wait to get them started!

My Stark Bros. catalog was also a welcome sight for my winter-weary eyes. You can request your copy here. Stark Bros. is located in Missouri, and they offer great fruit and nuts trees, as well as some garden and landscape ornamentals.

Last year we planted six dwarf fruit trees in the backyard; this year, I'd like to add two more apple trees.  If I could figure out how to fit some cherry and paw paw trees in my yard, then I'd order those as well.  I might experiment with some citrus trees this summer, keeping them trimmed and in containers so they could be moved indoors in the fall. 

This Meyeri Lemon tree looks like fun:

As does this Valencia Orange:

I'm sure I'll be making at least one order to Stark Bros. and Seed Savers in the next month or so, and when my favorite local nursery (Spring Bluff in Sugar Grove) puts out their seedlings, I'll get some there as well.

So while it's cold and snowy outside, I am quite content to curl up with my seed and plant catalogs. Spring will be here before I know it, and I want to be ready!

O Christmas Trees

O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!  Thy leaves are so unchanging;
Not only green when summer's here,  but also when 'tis cold and drear.
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!  Thy leaves are so unchanging!

Of course, my Christmas tree is green because it's fake, but let's not quibble over details. I have eight Christmas trees in my home...would you like a tour?

Let's start in the living room:

The living room is also the toy room, so all the ornaments are break-resistant.  The lights are colored, but all the ornaments are gold and red.  There is no real theme to this tree, unless you count "festive and sparkly" as a theme. If so, there is a definite theme!

Next, let's head to the dining room:

Last year, there was no tree in the dining room--this is one of the four new trees I bought on clearance after last Christmas.  The dining room has a circus theme going on already with the artwork, so I carried that over to the tree.  This tree has white lights and jewel-toned ornaments.  It also features several fun circus-style ornaments, like this Santa using a bullhorn while riding a unicycle:

I have a very small tree in the kitchen. It has to be small, because it sits on top of the fridge; I just can't spare the counter space, especially during this time of year.  The kitchen tree is decorated with handmade snowmen holding cinnamon sticks, baking-themed ornaments, and white lights.

Next is the 12-foot tree in the family room.  This one holds all of our heirloom and family ornaments. It has white lights and an angel on top.  This is where Santa leaves his presents for the kids, and where we exchange and open presents as a family.

Now, let's head upstairs...I now have a tree in the master bedroom (one of the four new ones to the house).  It is a (scrawny) four foot tree pre-lit with white lights, and a strand of iridescent pointy bulbs added for effect. 

This tree has a Wizard of Oz theme, which is actually more appropriate for the guest room.  Perhaps in the next year or two my dream of a beach-themed tree for the master bedroom will happen.  In the meantime, I am really enjoying Miss Gulch on her bike along with all the other Wizard of Oz ornaments.

Thanks to my after-Christmas shopping spree last year, the kids each have a tree in their rooms, too.  I thought I was buying two foot trees for them, which would have been suitable for their dressers, but they turned out to be three foot trees so I kept them on the floor. Little Guy's tree was pre-lit with white lights, but I threw a strand of blue lights on there to brighten it up. 

I tried to include ornaments on each tree that corresponded with their personalities and/or interests.  Here is the Hallmark ornament "Max Sets Sail" from the book Where the Wild Things Are, which is wildly appropriate for both the Little Guy and his very own Christmas tree.

Little Miss also has a tree in her room. It also has white and blue lights, though I added strands of pearls to give it a more feminine touch.  The ornaments on her tree, once all evenly distributed, are now mostly all of to one side: Little Miss likes to redecorate and reorganize her tree, it would seem.

Instead of a star, Little Miss's tree has a butterfly at the top.  I think it's a nice touch.

Christmas tree #8 is one I've had for a while, and it's also one of my favorites.  This tree is on the second floor balcony overlooking the foyer and just outside the master bedroom.  It's theme is The Twelve Days of Christmas and almost all of the ornaments relate to the theme.

The some ornaments are grouped closely together, which is Little Guy's tree-decorating style.  Fun story: the Little Guy and I decorated this tree, just the two of us.  It was after his bedtime, and I knew that he hadn't fallen asleep yet. I peeked into his room, got him up and told him we weren't going to talk, just work.  So (almost) silently we decorated this tree, all the while giving each other smiles and thumbs-up.  It was a fun mother-son moment I will remember for a long, long time, and I hope he does, too.

O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!  Much pleasure thou can'st give me;
How often has the Christmas tree afforded me the greatest glee!
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!  Much pleasure thou can'st give me.

I hope you enjoyed this Christmas tree tour. Over the weekend, I'll put up a full photo album of all the trees and special ornaments on facebook.  Become a fan to see the gallery. Have a great weekend!

Tree time

Back in May, we planted six dwarf fruit trees in the backyard. It's been exciting to see them leaf out and grow this summer.  If all goes well, we should have fruit in 2-3 years. 

Here's the Little Guy next to a peach tree when it was planted:

And here are the peach trees now, over four months later:

Here, the Little Guy "poses" next to the Starkrimson Red Delicious apple tree. This tree, like most of the others, is now even with the top of the fence making it five feet high.  Five feet tall for a tree might seem small, but the dwarf-size is considered fully grown at eight feet. We're over halfway there!

Remember that Girls Night Out event I went to at Spring Bluff Nursery?  I used my 50% off coupon to get the Skyline honeylocust tree I had my eye on, and they installed it two weeks ago.  While it looks close to the house, the tree is actually 19 feet away and is sort of in what could be considered the central part of the yard (without being smack in the middle of the backyard).   It's as tall as the second story of the house, which makes me really happy. In a few years, this tree should provide some nice shade for the backyard and the house without interfering with the fruit trees or my perimeter garden.  

This tree joins the honeylocust the Big Guy won for me in the spring.  I think that as far as shade trees go, we're good in the back yard.  Perhaps years from now, when my gardening days are over, a third shade tree can be planted, but for now I'm quite happy with the two honeylocust trees.  May they grow strong and quick to shade our house and portions of our backyard!

I'm not done with fruit trees, though.  As I've mentioned before, I'll plant two more dwarf apple trees in the spring: Honeycrisp and Winesap.  In three years I hope to be swimming in apples.  I can hardly wait!

Martha/Manda Monday--Fruit trees!

Forever, since the beginning of time (or at least early 2008) I have wanted an orchard just like Martha's.  She has espaliered apple trees on her farm, and so many apples she had to get a cider press just to make use of the abundance.  After years of dreaming and planning, I am finally doing it...I'm starting my own (mini) fruit orchard.  Woohoo!

After months of careful consideration, I ordered eight fruit trees from Stark Bros. nursery in Louisiana, Missouri:  four apple, two pear and two peach.  All are dwarf size.  I originally found the info for Stark Bros. on Martha's website, and then again in my Gardening in Illinois book.  I ordered at the end of April and scheduled delivery for mid-May so the trees would arrive right before the football team did for the yard clean-up day.

Unfortunately, two apple trees didn't make it because they were out of quality stock by the time they were shipped.  And due to Murphy's Law, those two trees were the apple varieties that I really, really wanted: Honeycrisp and Winesap.  Not cool, Stark Bros. Not cool!

But I digress, as I got all the other trees I had ordered, and they all arrived in good condition. I immediately put them into buckets of water and they chillaxed in my foyer for two days before the football team planted them. 

Notice how I ran out of buckets and used a cooler.  Just keeping it real, folks!

The two apple trees (Red Delicious and Winter Banana) are on the south side of the backyard.  If these do well, then I will definitely (re-) order Honeycrisp and Winesap for planting next spring.  I planted all trees in the order in which they will bear fruit--those ripening earlier in the season are the furthest east to get the most sun, while those that will ripen later (such as the Winter Banana apple which ripens in October) are to the west. 

The peach (Delicious and Reliance) trees and pear (Delicious and Moonglow) are along the north side of the backyard.  I did this on purpose:  the north side of the backyard gets sun earlier in the season, and therefore the peach and pear trees (which ripen earlier in the season than apples) would get the sun they needed right away so they could get to work providing me with fresh and tasty fruit.

Since I am not a fruit tree expert, I have no idea how well my planting rationale would work, but it's worth a try!

Within a week of getting in the ground, all of my trees had small green buds on them. Hooray!

They won't set fruit for 2-3 years, but I'm hoping they will thrive and it will be worth the wait.  Here, my Little Guy stands next to the Delicious Peach.  I ordered all dwarf supreme trees (supreme was supposed to indicate a larger specimen) and this is the smallest one of the whole bunch.



The Little Guy was thrilled to be bigger than a tree.  I'm hoping that by summer's end that won't be the case and the tree will have a few inches on him.  I'm excited to start my home orchard, and I hope my careful planning and purchases pay off in a few years with bushels and bushels of pears, peaches and apples.  I can almost taste the pie right now!

Shade tree

As part of the Deluxe Gardening Package, we got our choice of a shade tree (locust, maple or Bradford pear) and installation.  Since I hate Bradford pears and I'm allergic to maple trees, the locust was the obvious choice.  We put it in a corner of the backyard.  The tree was donated to the event from Collegiate Landscape. 

Here are some photos from the installation:

I am really thrilled that the tree is so big to begin with--it must be 12' tall!  The landscapers had it delivered and installed in no time. And bonus: they mulched it. 

After the installation, I had the Little Guy and Little Miss pose by the tree.  My plan is to take this same picture once or twice a year for our family records to document how much the kids and the tree are growing.

Of course, with this much cuteness, I might be taking this picture every week.