The Backyard Garden Project

Flora and Fauna

Apr 19

virginia beach backyard garden photography project

For years, we've had a backyard garden. When we first moved into the house, Forrest planted a rose garden. He reasoned that it made more sense to grow me roses than to buy me roses at the store. Smart man :-) Then we added a vegetable garden. Forrest has handled most of the veggies, with me being responsible for weeding, watering when he travels, picking, and preparing. We added blueberries and fight the birds each year to see who gets the best berries of the summer. When I began to home brew, we added hops, which created a whole beautiful mess that has to be trellised and controlled. We planted a couple of cherry trees, mostly losing the battle with the birds for those. Then we added figs and hazelnuts, neither of which have produced much, but they sure are pretty. A couple of summers ago, I added a butterfly garden, learning about what the butterflies needed for both caterpillar food and butterfly nectar. Each year, we seem to have added more and more, and this year is no different. With all of the additions, and the time required to care for so much life, I decided to dedicate myself to a backyard garden project. This spring, summer, and likely into the fall, I will be documenting and sharing the story of our backyard garden. It will be messy, imperfect, and full of challenges. But it will be a constant reminder to slow down, appreciate nature's beauty and bounty, and enjoy each little moment in life.

This summer, we turned our one large vegetable patch into 5 boxes. Individual boxes will provided better airflow and access to the rows for weeding and watering. We're planning a deck rebuild and we're limited in what we can do in the beds around our deck, so the garden boxes will house most of the vegetables this year. The butterfly garden will also be getting an expansion, which will tie into the deck rebuild. Which means... we need to get busy! In the mean time, we've begun planting and tending to the perennials that are already thriving.

I've filled in empty spaces with a few new perennial and annual flowers, adding a pop of color to our drab "grass" and beds.

We've been picking up plants here and there as we've found them and hosting them inside while we waited for the last frost. Sunflowers were started from seed in the window, despite dozens already growing beneath the bird feeders.

We've started planting in the main garden after filling the boxes 4 yards of fresh organic compost from New Earth Farm.

The past few weeks, I've been hard at working filling my cut flower bed with bulbs to hopefully bloom by early summer. But that's a story for next time, it's time to head to a flower sale and see what else I can find to fill our garden!

My Backyard Garden