With the weather cooling off and the bugs going away, it’s finally time to get to that list of never ending projects. There are several things going on around the homestead right now but most of them are about food — growing it, protecting it, harvesting it and selling it. This project is purely about aesthetics.
We’ve got an ancient (and hideous looking) concrete wall running along the front of the yard next to our road. So far, the area in front of the wall has pretty much been grass and weeds. Mostly weeds. A couple of years ago we planted some day lilies that my sister-in-law gave us and put a couple of ‘sort of’ decorative rocks near the steps, but that was it. We’re finally getting around to completing that project. When it’s done, it will be perennial flowers with maybe a few edibles but its main function will be to provide pollinators for the insects and to make our little half acre homestead a bit more presentable.
The Innocent Bystander got roped into digging up the existing soil. Luckily, it wasn’t our usual horrible red clay!
To backtrack a bit, we’re taking out half of a sixteen foot long raised bed at the back of the house along with an eight foot bed next to it because I miss having a private place to sit in the shade while I “survey my kingdom.” The front porch is way too hot most of the year and, by taking those two beds out (more on that in another post), I can put the porch furniture out back with the sun umbrella up, sip some coffee and appreciate the beauty around us.
Anyway, we took the soil out of one of those beds and dumped it in front of the concrete wall where I had covered the existing grass/weeds months ago with black plastic to kill as much of it as possible. I also added the expended soil from twenty or so microgreens growing trays to end up with a depth of about six inches of good, rich dirt.
Not pictured are the bulbs I planted once the dirt was spread evenly over the area. Next spring we should have some pretty purple and white hyacinths popping up through the soil. The current yellow-orange day lilies will be transplanted in spring to another area and I will find and plant some of the old fashioned orange ones. I will also transplant some white daisies out of an upper garden bed along with the hostas and Siberian Iris my sister-in-law gifted me with (thank you Joan!!) and add other white, orange and purple flowers to pull it all together.
The Innocent Bystander thinks it will look great as does your Happy Homesteader. In fact, I think it’s gonna look gorgeous! And so does Smokey who supervised the entire operation –
