Backyard stuff: The Planter

Oregon is rather wild. We are in a small town, surrounded by open country. Consequently, the seeds from weeds barely need any help to grab a foothold, and then take over your yard. It also doesn't help that we have about a half an acre, mostly wild. Sure, we cut the "grass" because if we didn't, it would grow taller than Connor.

In any case, we do our bit to try to actually cultivate and grow things we intended to grow, vs. just being overwhelmed completely. So we have a few spots set aside for fruits & veggies. Today's job was the planter originally set up for strawberries. Alas, the ones I planted there were from a mail-order place, and they never did actually grow. It's probably more my fault than the catalog though, since I didn't plant them the day they came in (I have a life) and then I wasn't the most consistent with the watering afterward.

So last year we had tomatoes growing there. Amazingly, I managed to grow some from seeds and they even grew fruit! Then we had some weird weather, they all split, and rotted on the vine. :( I think we saved 2 or 3 before they were all bad. Oh well.

So here's the planter as it was this morning:




Here it is now. All ready for whatever I decide to put in there. I could try tomatoes, or maybe I should go with watermelon this year... I wonder how hard it is to kill...

As you can see by the wheelbarrow, it's a good thing we can get burn permits here. That's just a teeny part of the yard! The plant on the far right is my lilac bush that should hopefully bloom next year. And there's a white bucket in the top photo that you can't see at all buried in the weeds.