How Does Your Garden Grow?

We (generally) have a front garden in! Yay! As you likely know, there's a backstory that involves expensive sewer work that ripped up our front yard, and a husband with broken toes who could not help as much as he wanted, but the short of it is that — hooray! We finally finished getting the garden in today!

We had to re-dig the front beds and replace the dirt, then lay the stones in front and put the short metal fencing back in. We also had to rebuild some of the mounded garden on the side (which is kind of grave-like), and dig out where the dirt had covered the herb garden. Some shrubs did not make it and had to be dug out, and we needed all new plants, though we did salvage a few of the heirloom peony roots from my mom's house. The plants were the worst, since we've spent so many years collecting them from friends, buying special ones, and building cohesion — and after the work, we just could not afford to go out and buy new ones.

As I said, though, the peonies won't be back this year but I have hopes for next year. We got some plants form the Mac-Grove plant exchange, some phlox off Craig's List, a bleeding heart from my friend Leah, and a whole trunk full of diverse plants from our friend Rachel's garden. Though everything looks a little limp and transplant-shocked right now, but I have hopes they will revive.

Our narrow city lot does not have much space (or sun) for much of a food garden, but we did get some herbs divided, plus picked up 3 kinds of basil at the farmer's market today, and I just refinished an old bench planter from Patrick's to put some tomatoes in. Plus, I am hoping to do a long-time dream project and put some gutters on the side of the garage to grow lettuce in for fresh salads.

It's a little barren still, so there's plenty of room to keep collecting plants if we get a chance. I'm fantasizing about a "Twist and Shout" hydrangea, though.

I won't say "it's all for the best," but I am proud of the work we've done so far!