More dirt, more garden work

Had eight tons each of top soil and composted manure delivered at 8am this morning. After bumming around for awhile after that, I got to work on the yard. Moved some of the top soil/manure mixture, plus some of the bagged peat, topsoil and manure to where I wanted beds for berries and flowers, and worked those in with the tiller. (Gotta say - I couldn't do all this work without the tiller and the large garden cart - thanks Mom and Dad!)

In the picture below, I'm envisioning the six blueberry bushes arriving next week will go in the long foreground garden, raspberries in the shorter bed behind, and then the boomerang shaped bed will be flowers (and I think I'd like a split-rail fence along the left- and back-edges of it - maybe next year?). Gotta figure out where I'll put strawberries and asparagus. Maybe strawberries will share the raspberry bed, depending on space needs?


Here's the boomerang-shaped bed. I want to do a warm-colors area and a cool-colors area of the backyard....so maybe this bed will have all blue/purple/white flowers and silvery/blue foliage? Or maybe it'll be the yellow/orange/red stuff?


Brett helped me carry the garden frame out to the yard. I ran out of newspapers to put underneath - gonna have to bug friends for more, or go to the recycle bins nearby. I don't think I'm going to bother anchoring the frame in, as some instructions suggested. Is it REALLY going to move?? The fun part comes when I have to start moving the pile of new dirt/manure into this bed (plus I'm hoping to build two more this weekend - gotta get the wood!)


Using the newspaper to mulch weeds, and then putting in the mix of new dirt/manure, I don't need to till this bed. Maybe next spring or fall - we've discussed building a ramp for this. Ooooor maybe it'll always be fork-turned, but I really do want to be able to till at the end of fall and beginning of spring, as needed.


Also worked along the north side of the house - put in a new bed (more dirt/manure/peat/topsoil tilled in), and planted most of the hostas Mary gave me last week, plus ferns and ivy mom and dad brought down, plus some violas. Brett got home, saw this, and was worried the hostas don't look healthy. Well, they got shot through with hale a couple months ago out at Mary's house, and they were overcrowded. These'll look great next spring - just not so beautiful right now.




Here's the big pile I'm working my way through! Wonder if I'll have to buy more mulch soon too!?