Yard/Garden Progress

Well it has been about a month since I last posted photos of the yard. The grass and garden are doing pretty good. I actually have to mow it once a week.

Here are the picture from last month and the one I took today.

You can see the three main spots have all filled into one big patch.

It is about the same area as the shed which is 8'x8'.

And this is the other side of the yard. This has all grown into one large patch too.

And there are several small patches forming that have several runners spreading out.

The older picture didn't include the bottom patch, it was barely visible then.

Here you can see the corn that I planted in the back 3 rows and the beans in the front one. I had to plant new seeds about 1 1/2 weeks after I planted the first time because they weren't coming up.







And here are a couple of pea plants. I had to replant them a couple of times. I just planted for the third time so we will see if any more come up.

Coming Along

So far the grass in our back yard has been filling in pretty good, for my planting method. I have just been transplanting runners that have taken root where they shouldn't be,and moved them into the back yard. All of this grass started as a tiny little clump or even just one little runner at most 8 inches long. This back corner really took off while I was gone. Back in that corner is where the drip line ends. I left the end exposed with a cap on it so that when I finally get to build my retaining wall, I don't have to dig to extend the drip line. I just have to put on a coupler, run the line down through the planter and then back fill with my free fill dirt I will get off of craigslist. Well, the end cap shot off while I was gone. So every time the dripline ran, that corner got flooded. The grass and weeds loved it and this time, most of the plants on that line survived.
This is the view from our dining room window. If you squint and focus just on that corner it looks really good. It gives me hope for the lawn.

These shots are both taken from our balcony, so it all looks really small. The largest spots are actually between 4 and 5 feet at their widest spot. So far the grass is just in the corners and right next to the patio. Despite the heat (112 today in Phoenix), it is all doing really well. I have planted some more little runners in the middle. Hopefully they will start to take off as well and fill in more. I am also hoping the rainy season will come soon and help out.

This is the best photo. (remember to squint and only focus on the green :) The green is quite accurate in this one. The other pictures look too yellow because it is so bright outside.

More of the yard and house

So I finally got my curtains done. I still haven't found a curtain rod that I like so they are set out on the couch. Imagine them hanging up. I need Karin's interior design expertise to decide what style of curtain rod I should get. Wood to match the furniture or the rubbed bronze to match the light fixture and table. Tough choices.

I also found the blocks I want to use for my retaining wall across the backyard. Unfortunately there were only 27 of them because I found them on Craigslist. Good news is they were cheaper that way. I haven't seen these anywhere else. I had the picture in my head of exactly what I wanted. Now I hope I can find more of them somewhere.

I am going to have to get a LOT more of them to go all of the way across the back. It will be a very gradual process. This is only 1/3 of the wall. And I want it twice as tall.

I DID IT!

Okay, I got up at 5:30 this morning to beat the heat. I weed-wacked it a little, mostly around the edges. I am so glad I got a weed wacker that doubles as an edger. It doesn't look as green anymore because it had gotten so long that it was all thatchy underneath. It took me two hours to do it, but I got it all cut and I even got it to the lowest cutting height. And it was even kind of fun, mostly the challenge of it. It looks much neater now, hopefully it greens back up now. I decided I hate bermuda grass. The runners it sends out to spread are so thick, it jams up the mower. Compare to the top photo below. Tomorrow I will prune the tree, if I can move:)

Mowing the Lawn

So, we are finally to the point that we need a lawn mower. The front yard has completely filled in and is growing like crazy now. You can see in the picture below. You can also see I need to prune that tree up again! It grows like crazy in the spring/summer.

I just used the weed wacker all last summer, because there wasn't that much grass and I could get it all done at once ( a little side note, our weed wacker is a cordless electric one, which means it has a battery that I have to charge after each use). Well now, there is so much grass that I can only get half of it done before the battery dies.

And, since the grass in the back has started growing in, we are really needing a lawn mower. So today I went to Lowes and bought one of those reel mowers that run on muscle power. I thought it would cost less in the long run, because we wouldn't have to pay for gasoline or electricity for it, and that I could get some exercise too. Well, it sure is a work out! But it was kind of fun too.

I think our grass is too long to start with because I had it set at the highest it would go and I could barely go a few inches and it seemed like it was getting jammed. I even tried adjusting the blades and it didn't seem to work. Any advice dad, since you have one too?
You can kindof see here that it is really long on the top and bottom left of the picture and shorter on the right and up into the middle left some. I had to keep pulling it back and push it a few inches then pull it back and push it a few inches, going a little bit further each time. But I gave up because it is about 99 degrees here today and I was getting too hot. I already took a shower today after an hour of pilates and didn't want to take another one. But, sitting here typing this post and re-hydrating I can feel the sweat roll down my back and stomach, so I think I will have to take another one anyway. Tonight I will try to get Ben to help me and go ahead of me with the weed wacker first and I will follow behind with the mower. I will even try to get it to cut shorter. I am definately going to have to water less so that I don't have to cut it as often. Maybe by the end of the summer I will be in great shape. My shoulders, back and abs can already feel it.

I had a couple of handfuls of the winter grass (fescue) left so I sprinkled it in a couple of spots on the back yard and here are the tiny little blades starting to poke out. And that little clump on the right is the bermuda starting to spread a little. It is so exciting to think we will have a nice back yard soon.

On a slightly different topic, here is a plant I have potted on our front porch. It has just really started to bloom the last couple of weeks. I love it, because it is purple. It is the only plant that isn't pink or red or orange so far. It is called a 'Desert Sky Flower' I think it is so pretty. Click on the picture so you can see the details of the flowers. It is sort of vining so I hope to train it up and around the column it is next to just out of the picture). I will probably have to plant it in the ground there eventually because it will out grow that pot. Then I can plant some annuals or something in this pot.

Sprinklers addendum

I have to add a few things. I had a few set-backs during the whole process. Nothing big. The first I mentioned in my first sprinkler post; I stepped on and cracked the sprinkler line. The next was while I was testing them the first time. One sprinkler lost the top while I was adjusting it. I barely touched it and the top just shot off and it must have landed in a neighbor's yard because I still haven't found it. We had a geyser for a few minutes. The kids were so excited about it. Hyrum and Josi were both on the trampoline jumping around yelling, "Yay, fireworks!" Hyrum kept asking for fireworks the rest of the day. It wasn't a big deal, I just unscrewed it and took it back to Lowes to exchange it. It is a good thing Lowes is on the corner by us. I have made so many trips to return extra parts because of miscalculations and get something I had forgotten to get, had to repair, or because I changed my mind on where I wanted the garden line to come up at (I think I changed my mind 3 times). My last setback was when I tried to put a hole in the "funny pipe" for the drip line with a pocket knife. I had to put a little extra pressure to start it and ended up making too big of a hole. I just had to cut the pipe all of the way and put a coupling in there. A 97 cent fix. The next time I used a nail to make the hole. My final thing I need to do is get a couple of threaded pieces so that I can take the garden line apart when I need to, then glue the rest of the pieces together. I have it so that I can unscrew it where it comes out of the ground. But the rest is all slip joints that will need to be glued together because the water pressure is too strong right now and it blows the whole line apart when I turn it on. I was hoping that wouldn't be the case, but alas. No biggy, just a couple more parts and I still have my blue glue.

Sprinklers finished!

Yeah! I completely finished my sprinklers yesterday. The trench is all filled in and everything. Here is are three pictures put together so you can see the whole yard. That patch of green in the middle is grass from seed I planted this winter. I need to dig up the first few inches of the dirt in the whole yard so that the grass will spread. I figure since our front yard went from no grass to totally filled-in in just a year without me planting anything, we could do the same to the back yard. I will take a few plugs of the bermuda grass from the front yard and plant them around the back yard and water it and see how it goes. In the fall I will overseed again with the winter grass(fescue).

Josi is pretty excited because she is one step closer to getting a swimming pool. Everytime we go to Target or the grocery store she tells me she needs one of those hard plastic pools they have. She knows now that she has to wait for grass and sprinklers.

Here are the sprinklers for the garden. I decided to leave them above ground so I can till it if I ever get a tiller. I decided I needed to put the garden sprinklers on the timer too, so that I can go out of town this summer and not have to rely on Ben to water it. You can see my corn against the wall. It is about a foot tall now. I am going to have to "cheat" and buy some plants next month. I planted tomatoes and peppers and a few melons, but I only had one little tomato plant that came up. I don't know why. It was down on the side of the row, not on top of it either.
Here is my most recent harvest. I picked them this morning. The carrots are about 5 or 6 inches long. And my beets should be ready in a couple of weeks. I pulled up a few a couple of weeks ago, but they weren't as big as they seemed.