how does your garden grow?

I've got lots of updates in my yard to share today.  We'll start in the back yard which is honestly still pretty grody but has had a lot of progress made.  

In the picture on the left is where I ended last summer.  I had killed everything in the back yard and moved over the garden frame which was on the other side of the yard completely in the shade.  The garden box was already here when I bought the house last year.  The photo on the right shows the beginning of this spring.  When everything started coming up green I was so excited! Then, after the first cutting I realized it was all fox tails!!!! Rude. So, I set about pulling them - by hand.  It's verrrry slow going as you can imagine. But! If I weed eat them the heads that have the seeds just go on the ground so this way I am eliminating some of the seeds.

And here we have the day I planted the garden!!!!  Oh that was an exciting day for sure.  I bought already grown plants for most things. Next year I will start things from seed indoors.  I'm learning, slowly but surely!  See that cart in the background?  That is my weeding cart. I try and fill at least one or two cart fulls every day. This past couple of weeks I have not been hitting that mark but still do something every chance I can. Slow and steady I am reclaiming my back yard!

So photo on the left after a nice drenching rain. Photo on the right this afternoon.  I thinned out the onions in the bottom lefthand corner so I know it looks bleak but they are just thin shoots but still there.

 And I have baby tomatoes!!!!!!!  Oh happy day!  I have one group that will be yellow pears and another group of cherry tomatoes.  I have not had any success growing tomatoes up here in the past so this is very exciting!

Now for the front yard. The front is like a whole different house. Ha! My HOA takes care of the lawn in the front yard, keeping it green, aerating and mowing.  So it's lush in front and weed free.  I have two flower beds, one on either side of my walkway.  This first picture is in front of my living room window and there's a bit of a covered porch area behind the roses.  The roses and rhubarb were already here, and the rest before I started planting was grass and weeds.  I pulled everything out back to dirt and planted flowers.  The purple is veronica, in front of that are pink carnations, next is a spirea that is small now but will be a shrub eventually. 

 

The flower bed on the other side I don't have as many photos yet.  On that side there is a giant rose bush that was already there, and tucked behind it was a clump of lilies. It also was full of grass and weeds. I did the same thing here, pulled it all back to dirt.  There are also a bunch of rocks so it makes me think at one point maybe it was filled in with gravel? Anyway, I thinned out the lily plant and divided it into 6 plants and spaced those evenly in front. In the back row on either side of the rosebush I alternated lavender and purple salvia.  In between each lily plant I put in some iris tubers that a friend gave me from her garden.

Everything is filling in very well, which makes me happy.  I can see what I want it all to look like in my mind's eye.  I know it's going to take a long time to get rid of the weeds and replace with healthy grass and flowers. But! With God's grace I have hope.