Construction Complete: Harvest Tour

We finished the hardscaping last weekend... 12 months and 2 weeks since we moved the first shovel of dirt, but who's counting!!! Let's begin the tour after a nice end-of-summer rain.

The big picture:

Top-of-ladder view (click to enlarge):

Our new pets, the baby koi trio. I especially like the one with the red dot on the head, it's supposed to symbolize the rising sun and looks like a crane (all Japanese symbolism):

Here's the rain barrel I built out of an old wine barrel. It collects all the rain from the front half of our roof, and gives me plenty of water to satisfy all our potted plants.

I completed the saloon-style gates on the arbor (they swing both in and out). And the angle of the "Z" support, again, matches the angle of the peak of the arbor and roof.The grape took over! We can't wait 'til it fruits next year!

Here are the other two gates, one leading to the driveway (where our car is being rain-washed) and one to the tiny side-yard of our house.

Here's a close up of one of the post caps. We didn't make them ourselves, but what a find! They are made out of red stained glass, and it really picks up the red in the frog fountain and the front door.

And of course, THE PLANTS...

What's under the cloche? A delicious crop of peppers and watermelons gone wild (with some neighboring melons and cucumbers also taking over)...

If you can't tell, we're very happy with our watermelons. We've harvested about eight and there's at least four more on the vines. A delicious accomplishment given our cool climate.

This bed has some young onions poking up next to our Leaning Trellis of Beansa (they are cranberry beans for drying, kinda like kidney beans). You can see some of our drip tubing laying in the bed.

Our six-variety espalier (espalier basically means trained flat and horizontal) apple tree with one lone apple on it. Each branch is a different variety of apple and is grafted onto the trunk. We're hoping for a nice and varied crop next year!!!

This bed has lettuces, cucumbers, broccoli, cherentais melons (basically really yummy cantaloupe), and corn. Our cool-weather corn was confused by our streak of over 100 degree days, but we had a few good ears.

Here are the blackberries (boysenberry and marionberry) I'm training along the side of the yard. Can't wait for the fruit next year.

This bed has lots of turnips, carrots, cabbage, and lettuces. Turnips are no longer peasant food! They're great roasted with beets, potatoes, garlic and olive oil!

Here you can see one of our peach trees being trained in a fan shape. It's a white peach. Behind that cedar box is the spigot, watering timer and filters. Look at all the strawberries underneath, next spring will be crazy!

Looking through the arbor to the front porch. The grape leaves are hiding the two cherry trees a bit. I know I keep saying this, but again I can't wait! I can't wait to see them in bloom in the spring!!! The border of lavender attracts so many bees, it smells great (even to me), and it has filled in very well. And, of course our front door really pops now.

That's the end of the end-of-summer 2009 tour.