Turning the soil

When we bought the house, the yard was pretty bleak.

The front yard contained a broken fountain, a tangle of ugly hose and pipes (not pictured), and one scraggly tree, which became even more scraggly and ugly when it was trimmed away from the house, as per our inspection. The tree was not-so-lovingly nicknamed "Cousin It," though my mother also labeled it the "Dr. Seuss Tree."

The backyard was a tangle of weeds, and not much else. (They did take the bucket with them before we moved in.) Quite a bit more green has appeared since this was taken in the fall, but it's mostly crab grass and dandelions.

Over the last couple of weekends, we have put in several labor-intensive hours making some early improvements. This past Sunday was the most industrious yet.

First, we removed Cousin It. We found out it is a podocarpus henkelii and can grow to be very, very tall. Which is bad news when the root system starts out just a couple of feet from one's house. What were these people thinking, anyway? Besides, it wasn't especially enhancing our curb appeal. So out it came.

Instead, in front of the house we planted three camellias (a Pope Pius IX, a Pretty-in-Pink, and a Marie Bracey, if you must know) and a little gardenia in the far corner.

Some time in the future we will add some azaleas to fill in the gaps. Check out the blossom on the Pope Pius though - it's gorgeous!

Doesn't even look real, does it?

We also put in two itty bitty baby citrus trees, a Persian lime and a Meyer lemon. The lemon has some little flowers which are very fragrant, and at least one small fruit. All that, and only two feet tall.

As for Cousin It/henkelii, it was relocated to the back yard, where the root system of a 35 foot tall tree won't upset anything but a run down shed that ought to be replaced anyway.

Behind the tree, you can see some little garden plants peeking out. We planted sugar snap peas a few weeks ago and they are doing fantastically. Every single one sprouted, and they are 3-5 inches high already.

(The crab grass is just driving me nuts, though!)

Next to them we added some peppers. These we started from sprouted plants this past weekend.

There are are few cayenne plants, a serrano, and a poblano/ancho.

The garden plants in the back are doing much better than the ones in the front, also planted at the same time as the peas.

Somewhere in this picture there's carrots, bok choy, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, thyme, oregano, and thai basil. This is an early picture, and there is some growth from just about everything since then, but nothing that looks anywhere near edible. Certainly not the abundance we've seen with the peas, and I may have to try all over again with the herbs in containers. Plus I think slugs are chewing up the spinach and maybe the broccoli. Beer traps are in my future...

We still have tons of work to do before the yard could be called "nice." Eventually we will put sod down in the front yard, replace the fence, add flowers along the front border, maybe plant an orange tree to join the lemon and lime. There are window boxes to be planted, very soon. We'll probably get some tomatoes and squashes when it warms up a bit more, too.

And the weeding. Always the weeding.