Okay, so I cheated and bought a "Salsa Garden" kit at Zellers that includes Beefsteak Tomatoes, Sweet Peppers, Cilantro, and Cayenne Peppers... I'm not terribly well versed in what I can grow with what where quite yet.
Last year I just kept potted herbs on the front deck until it got too cold and they were brought in. They didn't survive long indoors, most likely due both to the drastic temperature change from outside to in, and the total lack of direct sunlight in my house. I'd like to buy more herbs this year. Certainly more leafy basil, then probably some oregano and rosemary. I'll probably get another spearmint plant as well, for fresh mint tea.
I wish the snow would finally melt. It's March, I've had enough of winter now. But there's about 3+ feet of snow in the back yard still left to go before the ground can consider thawing and I can start turning the soil and considering how I want to landscape the backyard this year!
The year I started working on the back yard, this is what it looked like:
That crummy looking building to the left is the garage, not the house!
This is the following year, the summer before last:
and boy was cleaning that up ever a BIG job. First we had to pull out about a million shoots. There's a root system from this ancient enormous tree that a neighbor tells me was ancient and mostly dead when he moved in when he was in his 20's, and this is an elderly retired man, and off that root system comes these baby sucker trees, and are they ever a pain in the ass!
Then we had to take a few rounds out of the yard with a weed whacker. The yard is HUGE so that took about a couple weeks to get through. Afterwards we tackled the bigger weeds with a spade, like the clumps of rhubarb all over the yard, and when that was finally done we took out the rest with the mower. By then it had started snowing, so we actually didn't finish until the following summer, when that picture was taken. You can see a couple of the trees were taken down as well. There were just too many trees, and they're ugly little sucker trees. I'm actually probably going to take more down and plant a nice oak and/or maple. There are two older trees, a silver birch and another I have no idea what kind, I'll leave those.
And finally last year, this was taken in the fall when were ALMOST finished putting up that fence:
Same perspective as the other pictures, but taken from the bottom of the deck stairs rather than the top, so the garage isn't in the shot. The lawn needed mowing (how embarrassing!) so it isn't as pretty as I suppose it should be! You can see more persistent sucker trees coming up under that tree to the left in the picture. The 4 trees you see in that picture I'm considering taking them all down and that's where I'd put the oak and maple. Much nicer trees. I'd probably put the oak at the back and the maple to the side.
But I'm not sure what else I want to do back there. It's missing something, I just don't know what. I'm terrible at landscaping! And I need something relatively low maintenance that can stand up to the dogs and the kiddo! Maybe I'll put a couple giant rocks back there? It's such a large space, I just don't know! I'm open to suggestions!
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