Side Yard - Fall 2012

Linking Up Today with Fertilzer Friday

http://www.tootsietime.com/  

Be sure and check out all the other great gardeners and walk through their gardens....

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Wow I can't hardly believe it is September - so ready for the cooler temp's, but I feel like I missed a lot of summer because it was so hot.  All I did was move water from here to there and dash back into the house!  It is lovely now at our home in Idaho and I want to be outside everyday until the snow falls.

Here are some pictures of our side yard.  It is the place featured on my header.   Things have grown a lot since I took that picture.   Here it is looking at it from the patio side.  (The boards are to protect it from little people under 3 feet playing in the back yard.!)

Do you see the far end of this side? 

I have tried to grow several things here -  ground covers, plants etc and nothing will thrive. 

I have made an executive decision - I am going to cover it in bark chips and add a hammock to this area.  There is a pine tree that grows on the other side of the fence and I think it takes all the umph the ground has and the plants just don't flourish. 

I hope to get this done this fall and will post pix when that project is complete.

 The pots all have flowers in them I grew from seed - I was so excited that I was actually able to do it!

This is the view from the bottom of the side yard peeking over the fence to the play yard area.

The Centerpiece - The Pond

Thanks for stopping by! 

Today I am grateful for Fall!

 I LOVE FALL!  It is one of the reasons I love living here!

My Flowers Grown From Seed

Linking Up Today with Fertilzer Friday

http://www.tootsietime.com/  

Be sure and check out all the other great gardeners and walk through their gardens

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Today I want to share pictures of  the flowers that are next to the fence around the play yard. 

 I am so happy with these because I grew them from seeds in our greenhouse.  They are heirloom seeds so I get to gather their seeds too! 

 I have never done that before and to think they actually grew, lived and bloomed is a pretty big deal!

Here is a picture of each side:

Today I am grateful for the blue sky! 

We can see it today - first time in weeks because of all the heavy smoke from the fires around us.

 Thanks for stopping by!

Backyard Posies

Linking Up Today with Fertilzer Friday
http://www.tootsietime.com/
Be sure and check out all the other great gardeners and walk through their gardens
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I love this time of year!  All the flowers are in full radiant bloom. Here are a few pictures of our backyard cutting garden. This is from the porch looking east.

This is from the yard looking more from the front of the garden.  I want to grab the flowers in my hands and just smell them!

This is down at the far end

Here are close up's of some of the flowers

This is a close up of the daisy's with one of my favorite helpers:

Here is the only picture I can find of the whole back yard. The cutting garden is to your left.  It was a swimming day last week.

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The word of the past few weeks has been HOT like most of you!  Our forecast is saying we are supposed to cool down into the 80's next week -- we are very ready! 
I am an Idaho Girl - extended 90's are not the norm here! 

Today I am grateful for all these amazing flowers blooming in my very own yard!  Thanks for stopping by! 

My Hops Vine!

My Hops Vine is doing great!  I found some resources about how to make this into yeast for making bread,  Here is the link:   Make Your Own Yeast

Play Yard

Linking Up Today with  Fertilzer Friday

http://www.tootsietime.com/

Be sure and check out all the other great gardeners and walk through their gardens.

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We have a fun play yard but we are growing out of it. We decided to add a tire mountain - this is the party to get it started,

Painting Tires

Painting more of the play yard

Tires Finished

All Stacked Up

Here is a picture of the entire play yard - you can see the grass line where we expanded - still not finished, the heat has put a damper on working on it - we will work on it more when it cools down.  It is still fun and being used. 
In the back is the sound wall and the water wall.  
I will show those in another post.

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Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks for stopping by!

Today I am grateful for my darling grandchildren who love me and want to play at my house!

Have a great weekend.

Year Round Greenhouse Gardening

Inside of the greenhouse - in the back are squash and tomatoes,  In front of that are cucumbers and peppers.  In front of that are carrots, lettuce and beets going to seed (on purpose).  In front of that herbs.  Strawberries along the walk way

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We got our greenhouse 1 year ago  - I have learned so much!  I still have so much to learn!

Going through a year with experiementing and working on this I have finally figured out how to make this work with my outside garden and how to make it so we have a continuous harvest.

Finally figuring out my schedule for Greenhouse gardening!

I am in zone 4.

Here it is:
---FEB/MARCH -plant cool weather crops in greenhouse, start some seeds
---APRIL - plant warm weather crops in greenhouse, start some seeds, cool weather crops outside
---Early MAY - cool weather crops outside - harvest cool weather crops greenhouse - plant warm weather crops in their place in greenhouse
---LATE MAY - warm weather crops outside - harvest greenhouse
---JUNE - weed like crazy - harvest some warm weather crops from greenhouse
---JULY -  harvest warm weather from greenhouse some cool weather from outside
---AUGUST - harvest warm weather from outside, plant fall crops in greenhouse - (have about 90 days from August 1st for unheated choose seeds accordingly)
---SEPTEMBER - harvesting last of  outside crops
---OCTOBER - harvesting last of warm weather crops from greenhouse
---NOVEMBER ---harvesting from greenhouse
---DECEMBER through FEBRUARY - only harvesting cool weather such as spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, herbs etc. I keep plastic and fleece blankets over them - enough last year to keep things growing and harvesting - water about once every other week

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 We only have about 6 weeks left of outside gardening here in Idaho - it has been a hot summer here, just like most of you. 

 

Today I am grateful for the cool of the basement on a hot summer day.

 

Happy Gardening! 
p.s. note to self - next year don't plant so many squash and tomatoe plants! 

What is Happening This Week in My Neighborhood!

Linking up today with Blooming Tuesday!

http://msgreenthumbjean.blogspot.com/
and Fertilzer Friday
http://www.tootsietime.com/

I know many  of you have your yards a blaze with blooms!  I love seeing what is coming my way.  I live in Idaho and we are just at the beginning of Spring wonderful happening.

Here are a few pictures of things starting to wake up:

Apricot Tree Filled with Blossoms

Please don't freeze for the next few nights!

  Bleeding Hearts - Brand New!

 A Few More Dafodills

 The First Tulips and Grape Hyacinths

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In the Greenhouse

Hosta Seeds are starting to pop up!

 Moon Flower seedlings peaking up too!

    Today I am grateful for the spring time burst of energy happening all over our beautiful area!