Backyard Garden

We have seriously neglected our backyard for the last few years. We were busy remodeling a kitchen and basement and bedrooms last year and the previous years. We had to redo floors and paint walls and remodel in the summer. So somethings gotta give, right? Yeah, it was the backyard. I just ignored it and let it grow wild!

Seriously neglected backyard terraces

Terraced  gardens  & grapevines...what a "before" mess! 

Much better Backyard gardens "after" all the work....

The backyard stairs were done about 5 years ago with flagstone. They looked really good the first year, but after that all kinds of stuff grew all around and in between the rocks and it looked awful.

We added Solar Fence Post Caps in copper...they light up at night...super COOL! 

Then the neighbor's cement fence post fell on it. He was going through some financial woes, so we knew he couldn't pay to have it fixed. Murphy's Law. I knew there would be a reckoning day where from neglect we'd have to do all that WEEDING! And fixing! Oh CRAP! Do I HATE yard work? Yes, I do.

 

This is definitely the before flagstone steps picture!

Not perfect....but definitely an improved "after" picture....

So anyway THIS was the year we had to do it. Soooooo,  we started on the middle terrace and pulled all the weeds and roto-tilled it, and added some soil amendment to it. Then we started our summer garden after all the snow in May melted. We had snow until the end of May! We had a very late start to Spring this year!

gardening stuff

tOmAtOeS

                                 

yEllOw sQuAsH...

GREEN zucchini

cHiVeS

First Fruits (and veggies) of the harvest...

 We planted tomatoes, squash, zucchini, bell peppers in green and yellow, onions, and beans.  Oh and the radishes my class did, I brought one home and replanted it.  John got out all his tomato cages from the garage. And of course we had to fix like a GAZILLION sprinklers! What is up with those constantly breaking sprinkler heads? Don't love those things.

aPpLeS

                                             
We had put in lots of fruit trees years back and they are finally starting to produce....not lots of stuff mind you...maybe a dozen fruits per tree....but it's yummy and very fascinating to watch those trees just do their "thang".

gRaPeS....

aPrIcOtS

We also have an apple tree, a peach and nectarine tree and an apricot tree.  None of them ever have done really well except the apple.  I think our soil is just too sandy.  We have a pond in the backyard too and it looked just dreadful and it was clogged and yucky.  So we had to redo that too.  And neither one of us are "garden" people.

Ya gotta have some wind chimes.....

 We are lazy weeders.  I just want it to look good and I want to have fresh veggies...... and beautiful things everywhere....but I don't want to worry about it! I don't ask for much do I?

Lilly pads in our backyard pond....and we add 30 goldfish too....There are about 7 left....but they are BIG now!

We added flowers under the deck for he first time too...

The hydrangeas should do well in all the shade that is there...

The garden looks a WHOLE lot better here in the after picture... we've got tomatoes too! 

We repainted the deck. It was quite a sight! We used that new RESTORE paint.

Johnny painting the deck after I pressure washed it...what a stud!

Here's how it looks now....its fun to go out and BBQ again! Woopie!

Here's the other end of the deck where we hang out to tan. My doggie Bruce likes to hang in the shade with us.  We filled a cooler with cokes and it's fun to  read in the lounger.....oh yeah....the life of the summer-off teacher....LOL

I got some tiny chairs for my 3 grand kiddos too... when they come over...

 We fixed up a place down by the jacuzzi for seating too.  It's suddenly become a fun place to hang out again!

Under the deck by the jacuzzi...colored green and blue motion-detection
lighting at night made it more inviting!

looking up from lower yard to the terraces and apple tree....

lower yard...a fun place to lay out and tan....

It's fun to see pay dirt on all our hard work....now it's fun to go outside again!
I think we figured out the secret....just to do a little bit every few days...it was discouraging at first....but seeing it get better over time...(and still a ways to go) has been very rewarding.  And maybe...just maybe I'm not such a black thumb after all!