| We purchased our home in March of 2006 in Madison, Wisconsin. We are very happy with it, and have been doing projects around the house a bunch..... here's the latest: Here is the before picture:
We spent nearly every waking daylight (and some non-daylight hours) for just over a month painting the house and shed. We are finally finished with this project. We used Sherwin Williams Accent Trim paint in scarlet. Which luckally was both of our first choices when we were paint shopping!
Here's the shed/backyard before -
This picture of the shed shows the new pad that Jay and my dad put in in front of the shed.
July 4, Jay drove up to Minnesota to spend some time with his family. I had to stay in Wisconsin due to having Bruce at the emergency kitty hospital in Middleton. I took advantage of the georgeous weather and dug out the border bricks on the West side of our house. They were either level with the garden, or completely buried. It took 250 pounds of sand to get them all up.
Now I have to get these in, and we'll be ready for mulch!
The hydrangea bushes that I planted on the east side of the house have flowerd. Here are some pictures from September 2007. I can't wait to see them after a full season!
I moved some Geraniums that I had planted in the front which grew very leggy there to the east side, and they seem to be really liking that they are getting more sunshine.
The above pictures show our new rain barrels, which we have hooked up to soaker hoses. They have been good so far in keeping my plants moist.
This is the new hosta bed that I put in on the East side of our front yard. Nothing but dandilions would grow over here, so I amended the soil and got some plants in there.
Here's what it looked like before, Look on the right under the hummingbird feeder where it's just bare dirt.
Here's what it looks like now:
Here's the front bed with the mulch, and raised edging:
This summer I found a post on Craig's List advertising Calla Lilly bulbs. They were one of my favorite plants after having lived in Mexico and California. I was not the first responder to the post, but I did end up acquiring quite a few. They had not been in the ground for 3 years, but I planted them regardless - Here's how they are looking after only about a month and a half in the pots.
The frost may be coming soon, it's been down right cold here in the mornings, which makes for good sleeping, but worries me about my tomatoe plants - Purchased as normal starter plants, here's where they were at in July - We had many many tomatoes this year - and when the weather got into the 40's we cleaned the garden out and there were still green tomatoes and flowers in the vines! Here's one of the awesome salads we got to enjoy from our harvest this year
This is the begining of September -
This year we went minimal in the garden.. We are seriously considering putting in more raised beds. The current situation is an overwhelming clay soil. The tomatoes did very well in the raised bed last year, that we decided to bring in more of the same soil and let them have it all to themselves. Some of our herbs wintered over, much to my surprise.... so I have those in pots this year. We then kept it to Broccoli, Kohl Rabi, cucumbers, chives, rhubarb, strawberries and raspberries. . Last year we had a woodchuck have a lovely lunch on our plants about a month and a half in... it was at that point that we gave up on the beans, peas and other delicacies.
Unfortunately the soil was wrong for the broccoli. The florets were very sharp. So, we let them go to flower -
The chives are still doing well, though -
We re-vamped the laundry room this spring as well - here's a couple from before:
And, After:
Don't worry if you noticed the new faucet and shut offs for the laundry. We hired a plumber to do that part of the project! |
