Lizards in Sweaters: TREES!

Oops! Long time since I updated! The reasons are twofold: 1. All our projects have been long-term and therefore I had nothing completed to report on, and 2. Most of my writing has gone toward finishing a story I want to try and publish. But today we finished a project, and therefore, I will share.

We made ourselves a mini orchard! A fruit tree grove, if you will. So here it is: Liz and Matt's Gardening Adventures.

When we moved into our house, the yard was pretty much fantastic except one spot: the hideous sand pit of horrible nastyness. First of all, it was filled with dog poop. Second of all, it was filled with little pieces of nasty black plastic crap. Third of all, it was filled with random things that kids leave behind, like action figures and underwear.

So the first step was to fix that. On a nice day in February, we went out and cleaned up all the dog poo (the yard was quite full of it), and as much of the random debris as we could track down.

Then, a couple weekends later, we tackled the sand pit. Step one was to get rid of most of the sand.

Figure 1: Matt prepares to dig sand for several hours.

In the process, we also had to pull up all the old black plastic weed barrier, which was gross. And also to get that old tire out of the ground--we still haven't figured out how to dispose of it.

Figure 2: Liz digs sand for a few more hours.

We had hundreds of pounds of sand, and we really didn't know what to do with it all. Some, we spread around into the other garden areas or allowed to stay in this plot because it's good for growing things. Some we shoveled under the shed. The rest we actually piled up behind the shed. We'll see how that weathers... By the way, if you need any sand, I know where to find some. Free! We'll even give you a bucket if you take it away.

Well, then it snowed.

But when that was over, we bought dirt to replace the sand. Here's my car loaded down with ten bags of topsoil, five bags of garden dirt, two bags of compost, and one bag of mulch. Also, a bookshelf, for good measure.

The natural soil that had been under the black plastic sheeting and the several tons of sand was, you'll be surprised to hear, very packed down. So we started by hand-tilling the entire plot to break up the clay a bit. Since I lack arm muscles, I mostly used my hip to turn the tiller, and I did indeed end up with a bruise on my hip bone. Totally worth it.

Then we back filled with the top soil, and mixed in the compost and gardening soil.

Add a lot of water to get it good and muddy, and look! Real dirt! We were so damn proud of that dirt.

Our plan was to wait until May Day to plant the trees. Particularly because I have a bad habit of planting too early, and everything dies by mid-April. But then this is what it looked like on May Day. Huh, I thought Denver's skyline was supposed to be over there somewhere.

Finally, on Friday night we came home from a week of warm weather and quite a bit of good rain. Not wanting to waste another moment, we went and got our trees!