A Work in Progress

I wish I could title this post FINISHED but for those of you who garden know yards are never finished. We have been making major headway though so I wanted to post some pictures. Our goal was to have everything ready for planting in time for spring planting. We were close. We did not have things ready for peas, lettuce and spinach to be in the ground and be productive before it gets too hot but we will be ready for most things. We have tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, and a few other things under grow lights and doing well. They and the garden will be ready for transplanting at the end of next month. I can't say we did it all ourselves. We did hire some things out this time around (in our last backyard we did everything ourselves and I have to say our yard was the only sad part I had about leaving that house) but we learned alot from that yard and knew exactly how we wanted things this time. You have to remember Vegas' yards are small so we have to use every square inch we have to be productive. Here is what things look like:

Along the north wall, we have two dwarf lemon and two dwarf lime trees planted so far. There is also one pomegranate in the back corner (you can't see it from my picture). In the front by the patio is a place for compost. We will be planting a row of strawberries in front of the citrus trees along the curbing (we have 50 plants to transplant) and in back of them we will put some grape vines to run the length of the wall on trellises we have yet to make.

Along the back wall we have 5 ft of gardening space that runs the length of the yard and down the south wall. We will be planting asparagus down the south wall among other things.
Between the grass area and gardening area we have planted thornless blackberry bushes to make a hedge to separate the two area. We have not yet finished trellises for those either.

Small spot for an herb garden right off the back patio.

We made three raised beds. Each one is 16ftx8ft with a rock pathway between them.

We laid sod and in the grass area there are two peach trees and one apricot tree starting to bloom out.

Here is a close up of the gate Rakel gave us that once the hedge fills in will be in entrance into the lawn area from the garden area.

Here is a close up of one of the beds which might look like nothing to you but we hauled out ALOT of terrible desert dirt and rock that nothing can grow in from all over the yard. In turn we hauled in 23 TONS of organic compost and top soil (can you see the blackness;) that is not desert dirt my friends). This is what was the most time consuming part. I have no idea how many wheelbarrows full of dirt that was but I can say it is alot of sore muscles worth.

We also had concrete poured around both sides of the house which both sides tie into the patio around back. There is a 1 foot border between the house and the sidewalk I will use to plant a plethora of flowers. I pray we have a productive garden this year and can't wait for next five or so years when we have everything planted, fruitful, and filled in!