Introduction and inital beds.

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Hello, My name is Mike and I’m a new gardener. My wife and I hail from Alert Bay, at the top of Vancouver Island in the Pacific Northwest of British Columbia.

We just started gardening this year. It required digging out beds in the yard, which we discovered were filled with the left over concrete mix from pouring the walkway years ago. We also found quite a collection of random plastic garbage, plywood, and roots.

After turning over this area, and consigning the turf to the compost pile, I strained out a large part of the rocks and gravel, added in some sea soil, some peat moss, and some lime.

Ugly Lower Bed

We did it in two stages, first the lower “ugly bed” then the upper “Kimber bed.” While clearing out the lower bed we punched through a black pipe, the purpose of which was non-apparent even through heavy rains. It didn’t smell or anything, so we knew it wasn’t sewer.

We found out what it was when I accidentally flooded the bed while cleaning out the eves. I then had to dig a trench which I filled with the rocks screened out while I was forming the area. We planted some Dahlias, and a wildflower mix. We planted the mix directly into the ground and now can’t tell what’s flowers and what’s weeds.

Kimber Bed

The upper bed I cut out about 3 weeks later, forming a circle within a circle. I planted the Lilac inside the inner circle. This was about a month ago, and I finally got around to planting some ground cover in the form of “Wine and Roses” Thyme. I will eventually be adding in some crocus’ for a mix early spring burst of colour.

This bed needs a bit of work still, as I want to straighten out the ends of the circles, to better blend it into the lower bed next year when I add more dirt to the lower one to even their levels out.

This is just one of several beds I’m currently working on as I have a hard time with sticking with one thing, and prefer to work wherever in the yard grabs me for that day. As such my whole yard looks half finished, and haphazard. I know it’s only temporary, and one day I’ll have a garden to rave about.

Both Beds

• 16 Jul, 2011
• 4 likes

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