Another Day of Gardening

Well, the cold front arrived; it was 38° this morning.  I brought the tray of tomatoes back inside late yesterday evening.  The storms missed us again.  I was so sorry to hear others weren't so lucky.

No wind this morning.  I hope to get more work done outside when the grass dries and it warms up a little.  May even drag out the electric chain saw.

When Nell wrote about making her unique landing outside the door to the new tractor shed ( we call all buildings in the compound either by their name for use or just the generic 'shed') it made me think of what I loosely call  our 'patio' which is just a small area outside the back porch door.
It is where the previous owners filled in a cistern and built a brick planter on top of it.

When we first looked at the farm,  I remarked that I liked the patio.  The man laughed and said that mess wasn't his.  His wife had done the entire thing; he was embarrassed by it.  I still like it!



Now here are some closeups:

This is the cistern planter.  I was told the bricks were made by slaves from clay found on the farm.


There are various things used,  more bricks, river gravel embedded in concrete and regular purchased paving stones.



Looking to the kitchen at the small planter where Jack Frost brunnera and variegated Solomon's seal grow.  The Solomon's seal is taking over!  The single hellebore seems to have  disappeared.



this is taken to the right of the door (see the  boxwood that edges the back porch),



This area is an L-shaped  area about 10x10 that I call the back porch bed.  I worked on pruning and cleaning it this morning.  I also dug up a clump of Joylene Nicole daylily that I have needed to move since the boxwood has grown so large.  It is sitting the the cart waiting for  me to decide where it should go.

and another angle taken from the doorway,



I had a productive morning.  Cleaned the bed above, took care of the chickens (3 eggs), cleaned about 10 feet of the New Bed edge on the west side next to the smoke house.  I hope to just keep  the narrow border of  this large bed and open access to the mower and mow the center.   I was going to eliminate the bed but then I saw all  those plants that I would have  to move because I didn't have the heart to just mow them down....peonies, daylilies, iris, a rose, a massive clump of iris (I forget the type), and I hope lots of self seeded petunias, salvia farinacea and poppies.  I was chopping weeds this morning and realized I was cutting tiny poppies! I quit and hope more survive than I killed.  I do this every year.  You would think I would learn.

I planted the whiskey barrel with  carrot seeds.  Carrots don't do well in my regular garden soil so this will be an interesting  experiment.  I planted some seeds of cilantro  in the cistern bed next to the pink rose.