With all the attention on the front yard, the back yard has been largely neglected lately – other than duck-related projects, moving a few new Berry plants from the front, and planting the spuds. But September is rapidly disappearing, and although the tomato seedlings are still tiny, hopefully they soon will need to be planted out, and the back yard needs to be brought back into shape accordingly.
I’ve also taken delivery of a second greenhouse – originally I had thought to combine it out the front with the first one to make one big one, but have decided it will be too big and detract from the functionality (and views) at the front. So, Plan B is to find it a home in the backyard, where it will be a ‘cooler’ greenhouse due to the back being a more shady space in general. Last time I had a small greenhouse out the back it got extremely hot in Summer and cooked its contents. But since then the trees are up much higher and I think will reduce the full sun hours considerably. So, we’ll just wing it and see how it goes – but first we do need a position for it, and that was on today’s agenda.
I finally got around to clearing out much of the mess in the old Vegie Beds. One small section was completely overrun with a mint patch and I ripped that out, tossing much in the rubbish, and putting the thickest section into a Smart Pot for later (it will need some more soil and attention, if it is to survive – I hated the idea of completely killing something so wild, so felt compelled to at least keep a pot of it going. Its invasiveness will be an interesting test of the Smart Pots I think, too.
I also reduced the size of the front bed by 2/3. This still leaves me substantial Vegie bed space, and allows for the greenhouse to go between the beds and the house. Hopefully. Also brought the twin compost tumbler down from ‘up the back’ to a place more accessible. Its been used exclusively for the refuse removed from the chookhouse for a year or so – I emptied them both and put it all into the beds as some organic matter. Very smelly, revolting stuff – so hopefully good for growing in.
Overall, the back yard really started to take shape today. Still some more cleaning up to do, plus erecting the greenhouse, and I think maybe bring some trees from the front – the lime and maybe the apricot – for a mini-orchard section. And somewhere the 2 new Passionfruits need a home too – perhaps combined with the existing Banana Passionfruit, which seems to have come back to life a bit (I had thought it dead). But I’m really not sure where – against a fence I expect, possibly in the Duck Pen, or behind it.
