I am definitely a country girl that loves to garden, quilt, preserve, hunt, and read. I love my family more than anything in the world. I live with my husband of fifty years. We have a son, daughter, granddaughter and grandson. We live on a 500+ acre farm in Virginia with about 75 cows & bulls, thirty chickens, and three dogs.
Unless it snows, winter can be very ugly! Then spring starts sprouting, and I get to work trying to make it lovely again!! The entire yard is cleaned up and here’s a few shots of the final cleanup.
The rose garden and northeast yard are full of leaves, maple tree limbs, and all of Sadie’s bones that she chewed on all winter fill the space.
I’ve trimmed the fall growth from the roses and the frozen tips. I’ve had two new roses to add to the garden and last fall I reseeded some of the perennials in that flower garden. I’m going to pull up a lot of the flat rock to use as borders somewhere else.
I worked one entire day and got all of the debris out of the yard and cleaned up. I was plum tuckered at the end of the day.
One of two roses have been planted. It looks like its blooming but that’s some red leaves and the label to remind me which one it is.
The second rose is a climber and red, it’s name is Don Juan. The other rose is a garden rose called Queen Elizabeth and is pink and white.
I also have lupine in that bed and it’s looking good but after frost the last two nights it may not look that good by the end of the day.
I moved the primrose from the bell garden to the rose garden for more sun. Maybe they’ll bloom better in this spot.
Leaves and debris are all gone. The Hostas in front of the porch are free of small limbs and leaves.
The hostas are starting to come up and I left some of the wood bark that has been swept from the firewood on the porch. Thought it might be a little more nutrition for them.
The flower bed on the outside of the yard got cleaned up and will be worked up for a new herb garden. I’m going to try my luck at raising them and drying them in the fall. The bed was full of hibiscus which will go to my daughter and went to New Kent County with hubby’s family that just camped out on the farm.
The peony and daylily on the outside got a good cleaning out. I just have one problem with them, they are full of grass and I don’t know how to kill it without killing the flowers. I’ll wait and see if they’re strong enough this year to kill out the grass.
Now on to the main yard bed and the bed around the gazebo!! Things are starting to look really good.
The mass of asparagus roots has been dug up and transplantedand moved.
Hubby helped me dig it up because I couldn’t get the shovel to go in the ground at this spot. He dug up 14 large clumps and I dug the holes inside the garden fence for their new home. I’ve never seen such a tangled mass of roots in one little two-foot space. Last year it produced quite well but was overshadowed by the pear tree on one side and the grapevines on the other side.
We didn’t space any certain way when we transplanted and because other groups along the fence are doing quite well, we just filled in those space with about 10 – 12 inches between and buried deeper than the root balls.
I’m not sure we will get any produce from these transplants this spring or not but I’ve covered them with a little chicken litter and watered well. Now we wait!!!
The soil is really good in our garden but we constantly amend during the cold months with ashes from the stove and all of the litter from the chickens and rabbits (when we have rabbits).
After we finished this I pruned the grapevines and hauled the trimmings from them and the plum trees to our special spot to die, decay and make another rich place for planting. It’s also a good hiding spot from the hawks for the wild rabbits and squirrels.
Much neater than before.
The rhubarb patch is sprouting. It’s usually the first thing we harvest.
Next will be our very messy yard but it will wait until this next wind/rainstorm passes through.
Living the Country Life My Way 