Garden Post #1

One of the things I most love about being in my 40s is my garden. I bought my middle-aged man house when I turned 40 in 2005. I worked on the 100+ year old house for two years before we moved in.

The yard was a project that had to sit on the back burner. That gave me several years to plan and several years of being a little frustrated at the unrealized potential. Last year, 2009, I finally got the chance to work on it properly. It has become my personal green oasis and I do my best to spend at least a little time sitting in it every day.


Rather do a very long post on the garden, I'm going to do a series of shorter posts about various aspects of it. Gardening is definitely a middle-aged thing, so it fits right into this blog. Today's post is the intro to the series and a quick before and now comparison. This post is a bit dry and boring. I think they will get better after this intro one.

The top picture captures the back 2/3s of my yard as of May 2010. My yard is a big one for the city, measuring 25 by 64 feet (I know because I plotted out on a grid last spring before beginning work). Things are green but the growing season is only just beginning.

Here's what it looked like in 2005 when I bought the house. Here's the same angle today (more or less). I have been converting it from underused space that required weekly mowing to a very utilized space that requires little work to maintain.