"Before" gardens are kind of scary... overgrown, lots of weeds, a scattered vision of possibilities. We've been working on developing these two gardens over the years (not that you can tell from these pictures,) but one began as a vegetable garden and one began as a perennial garden. Last summer I finally gave in to the fact that the bigger of the two was not the best location for growing vegetables so I took half of it and planted shade perennials. This year the project was to remove the remainder of the vegs and herbs and make it all perennials. Of course that meant moving all the perennials from one to the other so lots of back labor and clean up. But worth the effort, I think. Time will tell if it will all take off or not. I'll need to find a home for the dianthus after they finish blooming - we'll just pretend they are a vegetable this summer (*grins*)
"After" gardens: The vegetable garden is now ready for planting. I am experimenting with the idea of "square foot gardening" this year. Farm boy is allowing me to try this method - because he can be indulgent like that. Last week I put in lettuce and peas, yesterday the first round of radishes, spinach, carrots and beets went in. According to some it is a bit late, according to others it might be a little early so good thing it is all an experiment.
The perennial garden is now mulched and ready to be left alone. I still have a corner of oregano - mostly because I have no other place for it at the moment but the rest of the sunny side has rudbeckia (Black-eyed susans), and sedum, an unidentified plant and some echinacea. The shady side has grasses, ivy and hostas. Will probably add something for color after a trip to the garden store.
Last but by no means least is the HERB GARDEN. I probably shocked the heck out of this poor garden's system. The lavender was out of control, as was the sage, mostly from lack of care on my part. You have to prune those perennials if you want them to stay nice and I just don't, so they had gotten woody and half dead and needed some serious cleanup. The garlic chives had also taken over the place and some other surprises were waiting for me too - like thyme in unexpected places and oregano trying to hide under the sage. So WHACK WHACK WHACK - I attacked this garden. Chives are now in their corner, wild strawberries are moved over from another garden, sage is confined to the one stick left standing and the lavender - well I need to pray over those plants - it really took a hit but they are all blooming again and turning green except one so I am reasonably psyched that it will be back. I rebuilt the rock wall and after cleaning out the leaves I found lots of sweet woodruff starting to fill in some bare patches. A little mulch and I'll leave the garden alone for a bit and see what comes back. I have herbs everywhere it seems so I need to take inventory and decide if I am going to keep it haphazard or if I should get a bit more organized. Perhaps if I tried organization I wouldn't have oregano in three gardens? perhaps.....
Well there are more beds to tend to so back to work for this gardener!
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