I got here last October, it was all weeds and brush then, and this is where I'm at now.
From left to right - carpet down for a walking path, zinnias blooming nicely, cosmos I hope will start blooming nicely, and sunflowers that have done good but not great. Behind the sunflowers is a peach tree previously covered in vines that was cut to the trunk last fall and has sprung back to life.
Front garden bed is full of cosmos seedlings and the bed in back are cosmos that were planted earlier, also shown in next 2 pics
This picture has sunflowers showing along the fencing, with newly planted sunflowers on the left side of the fence and a newly row of Mexican sunflowers (tithonias) to the right of the sunflowers.
The next 2 pics are of gladiolus which were already here.
To the right of the gladiolus I have some red skin mix dahlias from Baker creek seeds that were gifted to me.
Here's another view of the zinnias in front of the cosmos in front of the sunflowers, followed by some pics of the zinnias.
Sunflowers
Two more garden beds with young zinnias newly planted, with a handful of sunflowers mixed in.
Morning glories and climbing hyacinth and starting to crawl up the fence and netting in this area I just did for fun and for hiding a trashy shed.
Gladiolus were planted at 2 different times under the old hay in this pic, only the back patch has broken through.
I just planted a bag of zinnias in this area, with cardboard serving as a keyhole in the middle of the bed. It was one of those pre-made bags that says it includes mulch and fertilizer along with the flowers. This patch is just zinnias, but I also planted two other patches that had mixed varieties of flowers in the bag. We'll see how they do.
Here's another keyhole garden bed shape mostly full of bachelor's buttons, but the back right corner has some 4 o'clocks and dahlias also.
That clunky structure are a couple old shipping pallet thing that are about to be taken over by gourds. Luffa, bottle, and small fancy gourds.
Those are two old bales of hay, like 5 years old. This is what I've been using to build garden beds and for mulching to prevent weeds and preserve moisture. I've also used cardboard, newspaper, leaves, chop and drop weeds, human urine, epson salts, a little bit of organic fertilizer from a store, and lots of water. No tilling has been done at all, the ground is full of large rocks so I'm just trying to grow on top of the rocks. Not bad so far.
This is the chicken coop I built, surrounded by electric chicken netting from Premier1. I now have a Welsummer rooster, 4 Whiting True Blue hens that lay blue eggs, a brown leghorn, and a mutt chicken that was here when I bought the property. The mutt, her name is #2, is the only one left of the 4 original hens that were here, and losing those other three hens really sucked. I might do another post about the chickens someday :)
This is a patch of land, maybe 1/3 of an acre out of my 3 acres, that a cool neighbor just cleared with his bulldozer and tractor. I'm in the process of burning that brush pile. I'd rather turn it into wood chips or hugelkulture or compost or into soil somehow, but I'm doing what I can with what I have.
I've gotten a lot done and I'm just getting started. That newly opened up area has tons of possibilities. I have no money to throw at stuff, so everything I do is done on a dime, but I'm having a blast most days. Thanks for checking this post out.
