My Hillside Veggie Garden

Can you tell how steep this hill is? Not only is the garden on the side of a hill, it is also facing NORTH! It will be quite the season to see how well things do. I have everything sowed now and only have the Brandywine Tomato's left to plant. It has been real windy lately and not wanting to flatten them, I am waiting to put them into the ground.

I have plans to terrace the garden and make some sort of rustic twig fence around it. Fencing will probably be first, just to keep the critters out.

I went and checked the rows out today and pulled a few clods of weeds still laying around and starting to grow. I have leftover piles of leaves from last year that I may use as mulch to help keep the weeds down and the moisture in, but may omit them to use in the flower beds instead.

Busy Spring

I have been completely neglectful of my blog, but not my gardens, which is why I have been neglectful of my blog.
We have finally gotten the hillside garden tilled up and nearly ready for planting. It was a lot of work, mostly for my husband, who had the chore of tilling. Tilling is hard enough, but do it on a hillside and it triples the amount of work. I had started by using a shovel and loosening all of the weeds and growth and pulling and pitching them all aside. Only got about a tenth done when Chris brought the tiller down and did the rest. He ended up tilling the entire thing 4, maybe 5 times to get it where it is now. After each tilling, I took the rake to it and got all (or most) of the weeds and roots out.
Before planting, I still need to mark out all of the rows and terrace them all. The soil is in good shape and I really should still add compost, but will leave that until this fall when it can all be tilling under. I expect Chris doesn't want to touch the tiller for several months again.
I have lots to plant. I have tomatos that I started inside over the winter, Brandywine. I have corn, green onions, watermelon, pumpkin, gourds, beans, carrots, sweet basil, cucumber, and red sunflowers.
I am going to use the 3 Sisters method for planting the corn, beans and pumpkins. This will save a lot of space and allow me to also plant some strawberries.
I have also been spending time trying to figure out what I am going to do about keeping deer and raccoons and rabbits and everything else out of the garden. We aren't building a fence, but I may try to gather lots of branches and make a rustic fence (free) and hope for the best. I also have lots of bars of soap sitting unused, so this will be a good way to put them to use. I may also try the pie pan method and maybe the plastic grocery bags too.

Today's chilly Spring pictures

This is a section of a bed that I enlarged last fall, encircling an old Pine tree. There are various Day Lilies, Blue Flax, and a variety of bulbs including Blue Delft Hyacinth, Mr. Fokker Anemone Poppies, Tulips, Chionodoxa Forbesii "Glory of the Snow", and maybe other things that I have forgotten that I planted. (Ignore the dandelions - I did not plant those!)

Chionodoxa Forbesii "Glory of the Snow"

Blue Delft Hyacinth - note the green tips on some of the petals, an anomaly.

Garden ball I made over the winter. I had a small problem with this one when grouting, a palm sized chunk of pieces came off of it! The bare spot is placed facing to the ground....

Grape Muscari popping up everywhere!

Out of hibernation I am!

"Hyacinthus orientalis 'Delft Blue' "

After a long white winter, I am emerging from my sluggishness, as well as my Spring blooms.

"Narcissus 'King Alfred' Daffodil"

I haven't really been sleeping every minute of the past few months, but didn't have the interest to post on snow or more snow. Who wants to see a picture of all white?



I have been busy with indoor projects, some painting, some upholstery, some ridding of household items. The real fun starts now though!

"Hyacinthus orientalis 'Splendid Cornelia' "

I did start a lot of seeds this winter and have many sprouting at last. Some heirloom tomatos, Jasione, Coneflower, Sweet Peas, Ageratum, Lavender, and many others. I don't really have any space to plant them anywhere, most of my beds were pretty full by last fall. Luckily we have nearly 4 acres, so plenty of room to expand!

"Hens n Chicks" A perfect circle

I have been outside in our wonderful 60-70 degree weather cutting back perennials, pulling dead annuals, dividing, and moving plants already. So much to do and already lots of weeds that need pulled.


Do Dandelions ever stop growing???

Sad news

Very sad news, one of my favorite garden bloggers has passed away. Andee Carlsson of http://gardenerinmexico.blogspot.com/ passed on January 13, 2008.



I hope you will check out her blog and see the beauty of Chacala through her eyes.


She will be missed!!!

Winter Projects...non-gardening!

Well, aside from winter sowing, which I have only done one jug (Ageratum) so far, I have started working on stained glass! Santa brought me a glass grinder, so I have been busy cutting and grinding. Here is a picture of my work in progress. I am pretty happy with it so far. I took a class awhile back (over five years ago I think) and this is my first project since then. It isn't perfect, but for first project without an instructor, I'm not going to complain!

Thanks to http://gardenjunk.org/ and http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/stainedglass/ for answering all of my questions!