In the weeds

This weekend, we're re-tackling the .75 acre that is our little urban jungle. Remember our patio garden? And the grand ole Pit?

Well, with warm breezes and leaves on trees (girly squealllllll! I love leaves on trees!), it's time to whip those spaces into shape. The plants are all way ahead of us, as we never even bothered to rake leaves back there last fall and here come the hops and hostas and peonies popping through the mess!

Also on the agenda for my last weekend as a 28 year old lass? Making a dent in the Yuengling stash my parents loaded me up with in STL last weekend (seriously - the entirety of my fridge's bottom shelf is solid beer right now. Add to that Hubs' two kegs of homebrew and the 30 bottles of homemade wine that are officially ready for consumption and well, let's just say the Bigger, Better, Best clan's eyes are most definitely larger than their aging livers), bike riding and zipping around on two legs, because - did you hear? Homeslice named me just ran a 5 mile race (on St. Pat's no less, when she could have been celebrating early), regularly runs at least 15 miles a week and is training for Dam to Dam (a 20-flippin-k!) in June.

Related agenda item: Buying up all the skinny lady clothes I can find because somebody dropped 20 pounds and has legit arm muscles.

Anyway, I'm hoping we can at least get the gardens cleaned up, pruned back and trellised this weekend. I've also got to shift some hostas around quick like a ninja before the rhizomes get too thick for me to dig through.

What are you up to this weekend? Would you be willing to rake leaves and weed for beer?

Meet the Pit

In the very back corner of our long-n-skinny .75 acre yard is The Pit. According to neighbors, it was a previous owner's veggie garden before our predecessors let it all go wild.

See that dark spot to the right? That's The Pit.

This is sadly one of the best true "before" photos I have of The Pit (and it features our adopted deer, Scott). A few random hostas, wind-blown trash and weed trees like mad.

For the past three summers, we've been chopping back the weed trees and spraying ground clear to try to clear the space.

The weeds are stubborn and we are lazy. Here was The Pit yesterday:

Not too different from the before, right? The Pit is about 50 square feet of mulch and weed right now, backed by a little grouping of decent trees.

One stand-out feature of The Pit is this fallen laundry line. The other half sits in our neighbor's yard. 

We tried to haul it out last year but that sucker is HEAVY. And we are oxen. So, we'll be masking it with hostas and other cheap and multiplying plants. Lazy daisy up in here!

That is also the plan for this wrecked section of fence. Repairing it would be expensive, we don't have a dog and it really can't be seen from most parts of the yard, so masking it shall be. Judge away, Productive Pollys.

Weeds and railroad ties. The Pit has it all.

For a little perspective, this is the view from The Pit, looking back at our wee little brown house. You can barely even see the deck and like truckers say, "If you can't see my mirrors The Pit, The Pit can't see you."

So. Reclaiming The Pit and transforming it from a weedy trash heap into a low-maintenance, weed-choking paradise will be a big job. And a slow job. And an expensive job. Fifty square feet requires a lot of plants.

Here's our plan:

1. Clear The Pit (done! Did this about a month ago, but some weeds have since returned. Oh well.)
2. Plant multipliers like hostas, day lillies and snow on the mountain. 
3. Split these each year and eventually choke out any remaining weeds.
4. Slowly add trees, bushes and shrubs to mask the fence.
5. Celebrate 50th wedding anniversary.

Seriously. This is NOT a project. It's a side game. Because I'm cheap and lazy about this little-seen bit of yard, I'm not hoping for awesomeness in this decade. It will take time.

Yesterday, I kicked things off by planting two little snow on the mountain clumps.

 Some viney groundcover.

Two giant-leaf hostas, massive amounts of transplanted day lillies from the random patches we have all over another secluded bit of yard and three trees (two cherry and one redbud) (not pictured).

And you can't even see them from the deck. Sad times.

What's you slow and steady project?