This is actually the second day of our garden project. This spot used to be a vegetable garden. Then for many years it was a dahlia garden. The last few years, however, we got busy with other things and didn't grow anything here, although we still had some dahlias in other areas, and we really let the whole yard go. Our project for the year is to grow a LOT of vegetables (i.e., a ton, literally!) and transform our suburban yard into a mini-farm.
The first step is to reclaim the garden areas from blackberrries. Here I am pulling a 40 some foot blackberry vine out of the middle of the soon-to-be vegetable bed. Yikes!
Here is Norm tamping down the THIRD yard waste container of cut up blackberry vines. Our hands and arms are so sore from dragging out vines and cutting them up!
I cleared out our 2 compost bins, and was happy to find a decent amount of compost we'll be able to put on our first beds. I filled up two barrels with some of the leaves in the picture here, will dump them into the compost bins when I empty them. By that time we're sure to have plenty of green stuff to add, and compost will be cooking. Back in the early '90's I was one of the first King County Master Recycler/Composters! Not sure I ever really mastered composting, but I know enough to get a decent compost pile started.
Megatron, or Mega as we usually call him, is a HUGE cat! He came in our cat door a couple weeks before Christmas - just at night at first, to grab some dry food and sometimes sleep on an old cat bed I put down for him by the door. He warmed up to us gradually and now follows each of us around and is the most affectionate, sweet cat we've ever had. He's not really very helpful with blackberries, but he's willing to hang out with us when we're working outside, unlike the other two cats, Grey Kitty and Cleocatra. More about those two in another post.
We have some Italian Prune trees on the south side of the vegetable beds that have gone a little crazy with seedlings the last few years, and are also covered with ivy and blackberries. We want to clean them all up so they will start producing again. If any of you have had Italian Prune trees, you know they produce bushels of fruit in late August or early September. Definitely will help with the pounds-to-a-ton count.
Here's a picture of Norm in a tunnel of plum, blackberry and ivy. Whoa - that's out of focus! Sorry about that, but I still think it's a cute picture.
As you can probably tell, we're both more than a little out of shape... One extra benefit of all this gardening is it is a good way to get in shape. I figure if we have a blog about growing a ton of food and getting in shape, we'll have more accountability and more chance of success. Right?
More in the next few days. In the meantime, a parting shot of Norm and Mega.
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