Labyrinth Fall "Haircut."

Our labyrinth got its "Fall Haircut" yesterday-- it looks nice and "tidy" and hopefully will make it through till spring without needing any further work.

The labyrinth is really one of our favorite features in the garden. We built it after being inspired by a lavender labyrinth we saw on a farm we visited, near Mount Shasta, California.

Building it was quite a lot of work-- and took almost a full year. It has had a few years to mature, and the surrounding row of lavender plants have filled in nicely.

The ongoing maintenance is quite a lot of work, as well. We didn't foresee that the brick lines that define the labyrinth's paths would need to be weed whacked quite as often as they do. I think I had an expectation that "maintenance" would mean regular mowing (easy enough) and then using the string trimmer maybe once in spring, and once in fall. Not so much so. The bricks get covered by grass remarkably quickly, and I'm probably out there weed whacking at least once a month between April and October.

It's a lot of work-- the average maintenance session takes about two hours-- but well worth it.

Our Purple Flowering Tree

Since we've moved in here, we've been admiring the rapidly growing tree with giant leaves, located at the north end of the labyrinth.

A few days ago, we noticed it had delicate pale purple trumpet flowers, near the top of the tree.

A little detective work identified it as a "Princess Tree" or "Empress Tree" (Paulownia Tomentosa) which is actually native to China and South-east Asia. Although a bit of an "exotic" tree, this area would be considered part of its normal range.

Here in the US, it's actually considered to be an "invasive" species, as well as rated rather "messy" by many horticulturalists. Evidently, they are all but impossible to get rid of, once they have become established, and if you cut one down, it tends to come back with 100's of shoots from the roots. And not just "a little bit," but for years after the tree was cut down. The 2-foot long seed pods are also extremely messy.

That said, it's also quite popular for use in parks and decorative landscaping, being quite pretty as well as fast growing. I suppose we'd better keep our eyes on it, as these trees can grow to some 80 feet in height!

For the moment, though, we're just enjoying the pretty flowers.

It's a "Big Dig"

The progress is slow... I spent another 3-4 hours behind the garage this evening, trying to move through the weeds that make up our future vegetable garden.

Given how thick it is out there, I find it hard to believe that the people who lived here before actually did keep this space very clean or free of weeds.

Got a little bit further along today-- still not sure whether I'll be able to get to the end of this by the time Sarah gets back.

I'm grateful for the relatively dry weather, which means I am at least not having to dig through thick gooey clay.

I ran into a few random potatoes as I was digging today; their placement seemed pretty random. In the greater scheme of things, I don't think we'll be growing potatoes here-- those will be out in the open part of the garden where we currently have lawn, and that will not happen till later this year for crops in 2015.

Looking at these photos, I can't even tell that I made any progress today... but I am closer to reaching the rhubarb against the stone wall, and I am actually a little bit past the apple tree, now.

The Weeding Continues...

Sarah has gone to California to visit her mom for a few days, and I have determined that I want to surprise her with having the vegetable garden space behind the garage completely cleared by the time she comes home.

This is a rather ambitious project, as I already tried to get started on this earlier in the spring, and it took me quite a few hours to clear just a tiny corner.

I tore at it for several hours today and managed to progress a little bit. The grass and other weeds are incredibly thick, and all I can do is clear a square foot at a time.

I am glad we didn't try to just roto till it all under-- it's a thick mat of weeds and vines, and there are some blackberries in there, as well. What's more, it seems like the previous owners may have deliberately placed sod in there at one time, because in places the grass roots seem extremely "organized," and laid on a layer of plastic.

At the current rate, it will be touch-and-go whether or not I will be able to finish the weeding before Sarah returns. I have till Thursday-- her flight arrives fairly late in the day, and since James is going to pick her up at the airport, I have a full work day I can apply to this.

I am feeling fairly determined... it would be nice if I didn't "let this slide" for another year. It has already become too late to try to "convert" the lawn area on the end of the house by the chicken coop, but at least we might be able to "re-capture" this piece of the property... which was already used as a vegetable garden at one time.

In the meantime, Tori has been weeding in other parts of the yard-- she finished the bits along the driveway, today. The bits under the apricot tree are completely clean again... the weeds had grown up quite quickly, after we cleaned the space out, a month back, or so.

We have both mint (not sure what type it is) and marjoram growing there.

Tori is also doing some work at Avis' house, but she seems to have a lot of enthusiasm for gardening at the moment.

Through the Wilderness!

It's a blessing that sometimes "big" projects aren't quite as large and evil as you fear they are going to be.

Yesterday, I put on long sleeves, a hat, my wellies and went out to tackle the wilderness behind the shed and the chicken pen.

Although it was a pretty miserable job, I got everything cleared back from the fence and all the way around the chicken pen, all in about 3 1/2 hours. In spite of gloves, my hands are rather torn up from blackberry thorns and stinging nettles, but all in all it was not as horrible a task as I had expected.

Experimentally, I left a "hedge" of greenery (sans blackberries) as a sort of "privacy screen" towards the neighbors. If it immediately starts taking over again, we may have to rethink that. Ideally, I'd like to see us grow a row of raspberry bushes along that stretch, but I am just not convinced the soil is good enough, nor that there is even enough of it. Maybe it should be gooseberries-- they are still delicious, but do better with poor soil and little maintenance.

I still need to continue clearing the space to Walt's property line, but the worst part of the job has definitely been taken care of. Of course, there is quite a dump run in our future!

If you compare today's two photos to yesterday's, it gives a pretty good impression of the change of scenery.

I'm glad this all went relatively fast and with less hassle than I expected... which means we are still on track to be able to use some of the space this season. We do have a rather "late" growing season here... it takes a long time before it warms up in spring, but it tends to stay fairly sunny and dry into October.

Now I need to get back over on the "other side" of the garage and see if I can't get the rest of the side yard fully cleaned up before the end of the month. It may be too late to grow quite a few things, but at least the space will be ready... and maybe we can get some herbs started, at the very least.

I really do enjoy gardening, but it can be hard to find enough time when you also have to worry about the daily task of making a living. Not that I am complaining, mind you!

Cleaning out the Chicken Pen, Part Deux

The chicken pen has been completely weeded and cleaned out!

Tori spent the better part of a day-and-a-half tearing everything out of there, and has turned it back into a usable space.

Keep in mind that this was virtually impenetrable "thicket," just two days ago. That was a LOT of work.

She is very enthusiastic about "growing things" and really wanted to "take back" this space and make it useful. And the fact that it is completely fenced in will keep any kind of critters (deer, raccoons, etc.) from getting in and nibbling on whatever is growing there.

Personally, Sarah and I are both thrilled about the progress we're seeing outside, as we both have pretty busy schedules that have kept us from doing anywhere near as much yardwork as we are really wanting to. And with Tori tearing into it, we're also feeling more inspired to join in-- it's a "win-win," all around.

Of course, there is a "looming thicket" still overhanging the space and preventing much sunlight from reaching the growing space.

It starts as a 6-7 foot tall barrier of stinging nettles by the compost bin, runs behind the shed, and runs as a 6-foot wide strip of "thorny wilderness" from there to Walt's property line.

It's basically a "wasted space" held in place by a retaining wall, where the soil us super poor and rocky (I think it was filled in with "fill" from excavating for the house foundation), but that has not stopped a number of blackberries from taking over and mixing with the nettles and well as what I think may be wild salmonberries.

At one point, I had this cleared out enough to build the fencing for the chicken pen, but it took only a year for it to completely grow over again. In order for Tori's project to move forward, there's no doubt this mess has to be cleaned up again-- especially if we want to get sun into the former chicken pen area.

I have no idea how much work it is going to be, and I don't look forward to tackling all those nettles and thorny things, but it just has to be done.

Cleaning out the Chicken Run

Tori has taken it upon herself to start cleaning out the weeds and overgrowth in the former chicken pen.

It's still a bit of a thorn in our side that we purchased a house with a built-in chicken coop and signs that chickens were recently kept there... only to discover that we were not allowed to keep chickens, at all. I put a lot of effort into renovating the space and "eagle proofing" it so the chickens could run around outside and not get eaten... and it was all for nothing.

I think Sarah and I both lost some of our enthusiasm and just let the space go to seed, after the chickens left to go live with Lesta. We talked briefly about using the wire "roof" as an arbor of sorts, to perhaps grow grapes but nothing really came of it.

Meanwhile, there was lots of seed from the chicken feed, and it combined with the richness of chicken poop and what was already good soil to create a total thicket where there once were chickens. To make things worse, a bunch of very invasive and prickly blackberry vines are starting to take over, from the border between the pen and the property line. Whereas it's nice to have some greenery as a buffer between us and the neighbors, it has mostly been "junk" that has done well there.

The good news is that I got the lawn mowed. Grass always looks so nice and "tidy" when it is freshly mowed.

Of course, one of the benefits of dry weather is that it is so much easier to mow... instead of a several hour odyssey of pain, it took me about 90 minutes (including breaks) to the everything back into shape. There are still a lot of weeds in the lawn... they seem to move around a lot. One year it's clover here, next year the clover is gone, but can be found in a different area.

Of course, we didn't do the whole "weed and feed" thing this year... still, not sure how much good it did, last year. I will say, though, that it got rid of quite a bit of the moss in the side yard.