A 2013 Yard Retrospective

Well, hello there readers! It's been over a year since I updated this, for good reason as you know. So we'll start out with an obligatory picture of the nursery, for record-keeping's sake. It matches the domesticated theme, after all.

The Sanctuary of Evie B.

The reason I wanted to post, though, was to reflect on the progress we made in the yard during 2013. When I left you in December 2012, this was the way the yard looked.

The yard as of December 2012

We had our fruit trees and blackberry bushes in place, the first bit of the prairie patch, a random juniper bush by the garage, and still a whole lot of crap throughout. We also tried to seed the alleyway in prairie seeds, an effort that unfortunately led to nothing due to the awful weed problem back there. Really, weeds and vines still had a strong presence throughout this year and made our work harder. Still, I was surprised to see just how different my little yard looked when I made up the 2013 year-end version.

The yard as of December 2013

Pretty fabulous progress! The brown lines were paths we laid down and mulched, and all the color is new plants. Remember that I do my best to only plant things native to Central Illinois or for food production. Here's what we accomplished, in exceptionally wordy paragraphs, from the front of the house to the back.

The winterberries and junipers at the front of the house

The most obvious difference was what we managed along the front. The pink dots are a native species of wild climbing rose (Rosa setigera, the Illinois Rose), which I've been slowly twining into the fence. They should produce fragrant pink flowers in the summer. The red dots are winterberry shrubs, which are in the holly family, and the two green dots are miniature juniper bushes. The more purplish one off to the left is a ninebark, which should have some lovely white flowers and then contrasting purple leaves. Heading back further into the yard are two tiny maidenhair ferns that I picked up late in the season. They're supposed to be excellent shade plants, and love water; I've placed them where they can hopefully soak up some of the run-off from the gutters and the sump-pump. Lastly, the orange-y block is a patch of prairie plants that I think did a good job of rooting and should round out the perennials in the front. The patch includes little bluestem grass, black-eyed susans, coreopsis, mountain mint, and a light purple ground aster.

We're also planning to put up a Little Free Library in the space, once Nick finishes its construction.

The prairie patch at the front of the house

Along the left side of the house, between two trees that were already established when we got here (non-native mullberry and maple trees), we're trying a few new shade species. We very informally set down bricks and filled that with dirt. With any luck we'll be enjoying native wild strawberries, wild garlic, and geraniums. Due to a very generous co-worker, I also have geraniums and solomon's seal on the opposite side, along the deck. With all of these, the thought is that they'll spread naturally and fill in the spaces, and that I can dig up and redistribute some of them as they grow. 

The prairie patch in June 2013

The prairie patch was my pride and joy going into the season until the Great Woodchuck Infestation got in the way. The little jerks ate pretty much all of my flowers, and I'm not very confident about what will grow back next year. Here's what we've planted so far though (that I can remember right now): big bluestem grass, little bluestem grass, indian grass, mountain mint, prairie clover, black-eyed susans, coreopsis, two types of aster, pale purple coneflower, purple blazing star, rattlesnake master, cup plant, compass plant, goldenrod, and two sort-of yarrows that I don't know the name of. 

I've got a few plants on the backburner, too. Virginia bluebell seeds are cooling in the refrigerator for another month, and there are seeds for cardinal flowers and milkweed out on the deck for the winter. We'll see if they sprout at the right times and can be transplanted this spring. 

The prairie patch in September 2013 (with an indecent amount of crabgrass)

Along the garage I tried to plant an herb garden. This was probably the biggest failure of the season. I was completely wrong about when to harvest things and ended up leaving them in place too long. The weeds (mostly crabgrass) were also overwhelming, and by the time I was 5-6 months pregnant I just couldn't keep up. Add in that there wasn't enough sun and the easy conclusion is I won't be trying to plant herbs there again. I'll probably be doing mostly container gardening for the herbs. 

The weedy area behind the garage during the April 2013 blizzard, after Nick took down 85% of the plum trees

The gray area is where we continue to battle an extensive weed problem. It was like this when we bought the house, with the addition of many dead plum trees. Nick was able to take most of the plums out by himself, and we've gotten some patches to open ground using weed-killers. This winter I'm trying to drown out more of it with cardboard boxes and piles of leaves. They'll have to stay in place through next season to try to stamp out the roots, in the hopes that we'll be able to grow something for real in 2015. 

The last few plum trees coming down in July 2013

The food production area was really pretty stunning this year. The fruit trees produced beautifully for their first season and nothing made us happier than to eat a few apples and peaches that we'd grown ourselves. The blackberries grew like (good) weeds, and I think they'll produce a lot next year (this years canes produce next years fruit). We also added two formal vegetable beds made from cedar wood, and 6-7 containers full of vegetables as well. The woodchucks did a fair amount of damage in this area, eating all of my beans, peas, zucchini, broccoli, kale, and carrots. I had a gorgeous pea crop that was just right for picking, but unfortunately the woodchucks agreed and were faster than I was. I think I'm going to need to do more vertical gardening if they remain a problem, and put things out of their reach. 

For 2014 I already have garlic planted, and we'll see how it does. I bought several large bulbs from our local farmers market and divided them up. I failed to grow garlic last year by starting them too late, so I'm hoping it works better this year. 

The two peaches we got to eat - delicious!

The monstrous tomato plants

I weighed almost every piece of produce that we brought into the house. We didn't manage to eat all of this before it spoiled, but we froze the vast majority of the tomatoes at least. I'm only counting produce that was technically edible here; we grew a ton of "sweet" corn that ended up being disgusting so I won't count them.

• Peaches: 1 pound
• Plums: 2 pounds
• Apples: 4 pounds
• Roma Tomatoes: 1.5 pounds
• Heirloom Tomatoes: 38.25 pounds
• Green peppers: 1.5 pounds
• Total pounds of food: 48.25

The tomatoes were the obvious success story of the summer. I froze 10 bags of processed tomatoes in preparation for the winter that I can just pull out at any time for making pasta or chili. The fruit trees were a pleasant surprise, since we didn't expect to get any sort of harvest out of them this year. This was likely the result of it being an amazing growing season in Champaign County, especially for fruit.

Here are the yard totals for 2013:

• Native plants species: 28
• Permanent food production plant species: 3 (apple, peach, and blackberry)
• Annual food species grown successfully: 3 (roma and heirloom tomatoes, green peppers), plus several herbs harvested during the growing season

My goals for 2014 are to maintain what I've already got and nurture the new shade plants and shrubs. I also want to majorly expand food production with some squash, melons and beans, and growing more tomatoes since they did so well. A lot of this is unfortunately dependent on a lack of woodchucks and I'm pretty confident we have one hibernating under our deck. I might have to give in and get them relocated if they reappear next year.

I'd also really like to put more art out in the yard, but that's always the last priority at the moment. We need to fix our rain barrel, plant a male winterberry bush, and find out if we need to replace the sick apple tree (and decide if we'd rather have cherries or pears instead). Mostly, I intend to spend a lot of time in the garden with my little girl. She'll be 6 months at the start of the growing season - a perfect time to be digging in the dirt and enjoying some sun!

Lots of things to look forward to in 2014!