Garden Makeover: Before

Last blog left off with us in Europe, and while we may wish we were still there all this time, we've been back to the everyday grind. Lately that has included work in our yard, as we hope to harvest some veggies over the summer, but April showers bring lots of weeds alongside May flowers. Below is what we've been working with all the past weekends since our return to the States, and tomorrow we'll have a sequel post to show some of the results.

Weeds had completely taken over the front, including around the corner leading up to the portico. The yard is also being overrun by clover and creeping plants.

Again, tons of weeds along both sides of the backyard too.

This extends all along the sides of the house, as well.

I got a major thigh workout pulling up all those nasty plants, and my allergies were absolutely wicked. We are going to spray the lawn with a weed killer, but we've done a ton of work by hand since we didn't want to compromise the growth of our veggies with any residual chemical killing agents in the soil where we were planting the garden.

We started all our seeds inside with peat pods- it was very satisfying when they sprouted! While we waited for them to get big enough for planting, Patrick tilled the ground with a shovel, removed some of the clay and mixed in manure & sand for better draining and more nutrients.

On the opposite side of the yard of the lime tree is another tree we haven't identified for sure yet. So when it bloomed, we got even more excited for these clues as to what its future fruit will be!

It was very beautiful all abloom! Our lime tree since bloomed also, but a wind storm knocked off most the petals before we got a picture.

Under the blooming trees, it smelled soooo sweet! The bees were frequent visitors and we saw a hummingbird once too. Go pollination- give us fruit!

Our work in the yard has also involved taking up the role of exterminator, as the slugs and snails are frequent around here. We've hunted and infiltrated hiding places, and we seem to finally be winning the battle as sightings have minimized. Ant baits are scattered around the yard also, and we covered a wooden trough with poultry wire after we realized the darn birds ate most of our poppy seeds planted inside. Nature is giving us a fight, but as you'll see in the next post, we're still having some success. Crossing our fingers for more!