Planting Time!!!

We didn't want to miss out on the fall plating season, so we ordered some mushroom compost which was (guess what?) piled in the driveway. There is so much dirt there!!! But we mixed the compost into some of our scraped-off topsoil, cleard off some of the driveway, and filled up our beds. Here's Mike planting our fall veggies: broccoli, cabbage, onions, swiss chard, kale, miner's lettuce, corn salad, beets, carrots, radishes, lettuces, and spinach. In a few weeks, we plan on planting our garlic, elephant garlic, and shallots. You may see near the house that we saved some tomatoes, corn and potatoes from the tiller.

Aside from choosing a few special stone pavers, like the one for the entrance, we haven't made much progress in the past two weeks except the beds. I didn't think it would be this much work!!!

Water Feature Progress

I've been busy working on the water feature, but haven't made much progress elsewhere.We needed to slow down to let the design come into focus. We decided on a border of purple bluestone around the pool and have some colorful gravel that ties the blue and purple stone together well.

It's coming together!

Water Feature Frustration

This past week has been frustrating. We had to remove more dirt both to allow enough depth for the gravel base for the paving stone and to fine tune the slope. There's hardly enough room in our driveway for the stone, the dirt, and a narrow path to our kitchen door. I can't stand all that dirt being tracked in, we need to fill up those beds!

While it's nice to see the pathways more clearly defined, we've been searching online and visiting every nursery in the Portland Metro area for a fountain, pond, bubbling rock, bamboo contraption, or overflowing pot. While we still don't know exactly what we want, we decided to go custom and make a diamond-shaped pool that extends above ground. Maybe it will stay as a pool, maybe we'll add a water spitter of some kind, I don't know. But we found some bluestone in brick-sized shapes at a different stone yard that I hope will look good.