"If you build it, they will come"... Our Garden Emerges

One of the things we are most excited about our beloved Redwoodshire is the opportunity to have a real garden and learn a lot about gardening along the way.  Previously, we lived in the city and had a mini garden in our tiny backyard.  We maximized that space as much as the sun would allow, and were able to get plenty of green beans for eating and freezing, a few zucchini, sufficient tomatoes, a few wild strawberries and a small portion of raspberries.

Raised planter at our old house in the city

We constantly battled the reality of huge trees blocking all of the sun over our yard.  There wasn't much we could do about that, so we started focusing on partial sun/ shade plants- hosta, hydrangea, fern, trillium, mayapples...  At the time, there was a junk pile at the back of our driveway that was an eye sore for many years.  An old broken down motor cycle, weeds, trash containers, scrap wood.  Finally, we decided to clean that corner up and build a raised planter for more shade plants.

 So fast forward to Redwoodshire .  We love the land, and are making the house into something we love as well.  One corner of our 5.8 acres is home to a 3 tiered garden.  We are in the process of cleaning it up, as the previous owners hadn't lived here for 2 years.  When we moved in, you'd think the previous owners had figured out a way to harvest weeds and had hit the jackpot about something that could be done with them.  We'd never seen weeds this tall before.  The truth is that the previous owners were avid gardeners, both vegetable and landscape.

Mid-summer weed garden
We we're told there was a garden in there somewhere

Late Fall weed garden
The Laird excitedly testing his new machete

Early Spring garden
Mid (tilled) & Lower (untouched) garden tiers

In addition to the garden, we have somewhat of a very old overgrown fruit tree orchard.  We have a huge Asian pear, fruit-less Bartlett pear, an over grown old apple  (with 3 varieties grafted together), and a few sweet and sour cherry trees.  Recently we discovered 3 more unrecognizable apple trees growing on the edge of the woods.  This past weekend, we planted 2 new apple trees, Honeycrisp and Macintosh.  In the fall we transplanted our raspberries from the city house, into a 30ft. row of 10 plants.  We also planted 6 blueberry plants in our newly designated "Blueberry patch".  The Laird has been excited to start asparagus, so he did that this past weekend as well.  

The Raspberry Row

Brand new raspberry shoots-
Seems to have survived the transplant & brutal winter

The blueberry plants were nibbled on by the deer, so they will be stunted.  We have since put up some wire cage around the smaller plants, in attempts to protect what is left.

Baby apple trees- Honeycrisp (foreground) & Macintosh

The new Rhubarb growth

Rhubarb a little further along

Perennial plants are the best.  All of the above are perennials and grow back each and every year!  Rhubarb, blueberries, raspberries, asparagus, and apples.  Initial investment and work is high, but they will continue to produce (if well cared for) for many years to come.

"If you build it, they will come"  ~ Field of Dreams

As is true for every gardener, if you build up a luscious garden, it is guaranteed that the animals will come.  In the city, we battled crazy little squirrels that liked to eat our homegrown tomatoes and garbage dive for pizza and various left overs.  At Redwoodshire, we will be tested and tried by the multitudes of animals wanting to come visit our garden.  The Laird is making plans to build a fence around the garden to protect it from the deer.  

Apparently we not only grow food, we grow bunnies too!  As we were doing some clean up around the barn 5 days ago, we discovered this little nest of baby bunnies- 5 in all. 

day of discovery

four days later

Well this is just the beginning!