All in a day's work

I love gardening! How could I have forgotten that?!? We started at 10:20ish this morning with a trip to Groff's Nursery out in Amish country. When we got back I had 3 watermelons, 1 chocolate peppermint, 1 lemon balm, 1 chives, 1 agastache 'Tango', and 1 yarrow to my name.

       

(Achillia filipendulina

. . . also known as yarrow)

(Agastache aurantiaca 'Tango'

. . . also known as anise hyssop)

(and everything else)


Then it was digging, and shoveling, and raking dirt. Lots of dirt. It was quite lovely though, because it had been a big weed field, but it was plowed under on Thursday, so it was pretty workable.


 


So Friday we made a trip to the woody compost pile to pick up supplies. Much to my delight we came home with two huge cedar stumps :D One is at the corner of four of the five new plots, and the other is my new welcome mat!


Here's how it started:

 

Then I stared forming the beds. I probably should have done some pre-dig planning, but it worked well enough. . .

I turned some compost into the soil of most of the beds                                 

                                                                                                    Here's the fun part - I found these old railroad ties back behind the tool shed, so perfect for the corner they were practically screaming "take me! take me!"

 (view from the back . . . looking towards the house)

(view from the front)

I put burlap down on the dirt paths to prevent muddy puddles. I'm planning on putting bark on the remaining paths - I want to create this shift from man made walls and paths in the back to a very informal natural setting at the cedar trunk in the front. Brick and sand will give way to burlap, which will dissolve into bark. We'll see if it actually works on Monday. . .

Yay herbs! This will be a fragrant garden.

                                                                                                                        I'm trying out watermelon for the first time this summer. I'm pretty sure it doesn't get hot enough in Washington, or humid enough in Utah, so this may be my only shot at it! Can watermelons climb? I think so . . . maybe. . . I've got 'Sugar  Baby', 'Crimson Delight', and some yellow variety whose' name escapes me.

  

My plot is right up against Sarah (my roommate) and Tom's - we made our paths connect. Our gardens are friends.

 The other intern plots get a deer fence, but they ran out before getting to us. We're just hoping twine looks like deer fencing . . . at least to deer.

And to top it all off I came in with a lovely Neapolitan ice cream sunburn on my neck. Oh yeah. You know how hot t-shirt tan lines are. After watering everything in, putting all the tools back in the shed and wrestling with the hose, I came in around 8pm. That's almost 10 hours of gardening! I can't wait till Monday. . . :)