2011 Garden Photos

Here are a few photos of the garden during the 2011 season.  Enjoy ~

Vegetable Garden 2011

Picture of the new Potager garden taken in August, 2011.

It was certainly not the best gardening year that I've ever had, but I blame it on the lack-luster weather in the Pacific Northwest and not my skill.  Okay, so maybe it was a mix of both.

We put the Potager to good use this year, and it supplied us with plenty of onions, leeks, chard, lettuce, spinach, and even a handful of tomatoes!

Before picture taken on March, 2011.

The space has come a long ways over the last couple of years.  This spot was the former driveway, which we removed a couple of years ago.  It took quite a bit of time to get the space turned into what it is today.  Just earlier this year, we were building raised beds out of cedar timbers and hauling in dirt by the wheel barrow load.

Cardoons and Calendulas

I'm about ready to retire the garden for the year.  Soon, I'll be mulching beds and getting them ready for next spring.  Then, we'll start the process over again.  Hopefully next year mother nature will bring us a decent spring.

Side Yard Progress

We're making more progress on the side yard on the North side of the house.  Side yards are difficult because of the long narrow shotgun shape.  There were a couple of goals in mind for this project.  First, we wanted to landscape it in a way that would allow us to build up dirt along the foundation of the house.  This should help prevent the foundation from taking in so much water.  Second, we wanted to tie it in with the back yard and give it some elevation change.  We did this by building up the path in areas using fill and landscape rock.  We're going to hold off and landscape this area with woodland plants next year.  This year, we are laying mulch to hold back the weeds until it is planted.

View from the front-yard.  Through this gate is the side yard.

View of the side yard through the gate.  

Picture earlier this year when we started this project.  Here you can see how we've started to build up dirt along the foundation.

Kitchen Pot Rack

We recently completed and installed a new kitchen pot rack.  We spent a good deal of time searching the web looking at other homemade and custom built pot racks.  We ultimately settled on a simple design using materials we already had available.  The 4x4 vertical posts are recycled from a banister railing we picked up.  The remaining lumber is mostly scraps we had laying around.  The brass bars are a Second Use find, and complement the brass we've used throughout the kitchen design.  We built the rack perfectly centered around the light fixture which we just recently installed.