Our side yard sloped towards the house and rainwater entered into the foundation.  My husband Carl came up with an idea to try and divert the water away from the house.

Below are pictures:

Side Yard - The beginning

This sidewalk is obsolete.  I suppose originally the steps into the front side door must have run the direction of the sidewalk.

Carl took pressure treated lumber to make a frame. Then we stapled plastic (4ml) to the back of the frame against the house and began adding dirt (clay) to hold it in place.  The plastic was rolled out and dug into the highest point so the water would drain into the driveway and away from the house.

work progresses

Almost finished

Unfortunately Carl did not take progressive pictures during the project.  So these photos show pretty much the finished project.

planted chameleon plants

After the intial dirt was put into the space I did put a layer of composted manure onto the nasty clay soil we used for fill.

We figured there would be settling, so I waited until after a rain and added a bit more manure.  I had some Chameleon plants struggling in the sun so decided to put them in the shade – this side of the house is facing north.  It gets some sun earlier in the spring.  I know a lot of people don’t like this plant because if given good moist soil  it will go crazy but it is after all edible.  Here it can’t really go crazy because its contained.  If  it decides to try and take over the bed I can eat it!  Actually I needed something to grow in this soil to stop erosion.  I figured with it’s reputation maybe it would help with that.

Carl made a nice entry platform also using pressure treated boards.

Now I have more area for edible landscaping. Yippee!

Ta-Dah!

I have not been online for a number of months as we have had a lot of painting jobs.  Also I have had spam issues with the blog and removed some articles being hit 95 spams a day! – until I could figure out how to stop them. I’ve tried something so we”ll see what happens.  My husband has been online a tremendous amount of time so the computer has also  not been available .   By the time he finishes it is very late in the evening and I’m ready for bed!  We are looking into purchasing a second computer.

This garden season was very successful.  My garlic was gargantuan!  I had one friend who asked about the “corn”.  It was over three feet tall.

The garden area  was new this year so the tomatoes did not produce as well as I would have liked but we had a good amount.  I grew ten tomato plants. Recently my husband and I got a couple of nice loads of composted manure from a friends house .  The garden will really be good next year!

I continue to add edible plants to the landscape.  I love to wait until fall when nurseries have  sales, this way I can get more plants for my money.

I bought plants from Santa Rosa Gardens (www.santarosagardens.com) at their $2.99  each sale.  Also bought from SpringHill Nursery from their one cent sale.  I bought edible sedums,  Monarda (beebalm), Ivory Peach Bellflower (Campanula sp), Primroses (Primula spp).  I also purchased some grasses for the birds.

The new front flower bed really blossomed.  I had put in a pastel mix of petunia hybrids to fill in space and they really did nice.  Flowers are edible.  Not much taste to them but  pretty on a salad.  They were beautiful in the bed!  In the bed I planted a small serviceberry, Amelanchier alnifolia ‘ Regent‘ (4-6′  X  same), which I want to train to three or four feet.  I purchased it from  Edible landscaping (www. eat-it.com). They have real good sale in the fall.  I also bought Amelanchier canadensis ‘Prince William‘ (8′ X 6′) for the back yard and Thai Ginger (Alpinia galanga) which will of course have to be indoors in winter.

Well have to go second coat the clawfoot tub.  So I’ll sign off.

Cat