Before we left Knoxville, I made a great plan for our yard. We’d worked several years to enact the plan and had made some great strides. I was working on turning our yard into a haven of edible, medicinal & otherwise useful plants. I was also working on keeping it native (or at least non-invasive). I cross referenced a list of edible plants as well as medicinals with my list of native and invasive species. My plan was to plant everything I could outside in the yard with plants I wanted that aren’t locally appropriate in pots in the house. I was striving for an English Garden style front yard with a short white picket fence to provide some visual delineation between our yard and our neighbors’ as well as to allow Alfred access to the front without having to chase him up the hill. Some plants went into the ground, but the more rampant growers were be confined to raised beds.
Sadly, we didn’t get it all done. And we made some changes along the way. We never did get the fence up or the melons in the front. We nixed most of the paths, and the front mint bed was going to be a raised strawberry bed instead. I did plant mint in front of the house which had gotten well established and provided many a mojito.
The cherry tree died after one year. It was pretty tragic. And someone keeps taking all of the apples and peaches before they’re ripe. Not sure if that’s been critters or urban foragers. I’m hoping for critters because otherwise that’s just rude!
We lost most of the raspberries last summer during a long trip. The blackberries are going nuts, though. I’m finally understanding why every time I tried to find out the best way to take care of them I got “mow them down and set them on fire.” Those things just keep spreading. But the berries have been tasty. We also added another blueberry bush, but after 3 years, they still haven’t produced anything substantial.
We never got the porch/patio area built, and never got the grapes in the ground. We built the base for the shed, but we hadn’t gotten the walls up yet. And I never convinced Nathan to replace the grass with thyme.
Despite all of our shortcomings, we enjoyed some wonderful home grown food. Our biggest hurdle was our travel schedule. We were too ambitious for our time available. But now we’ve learned so much. Where we went wrong and where we went right. I’m looking forward to getting settled in our new space and start again.
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