Gardening overload
It's October and cold and rainy - the leaves are gorgeous, but it's cold. And rainy. In a couple of days we'll be at home with a weekend off for the first time since Sept. 19. I'm trying to figure out what I want to have happen in the yard next spring, so I'll know what I need to get done this weekend (i.e. before last frost and while the city's still doing yard waste collections).
Last summer's mini-garden was a success, despite the limited size of the property. Now I've just got to let those limitations be not a bad thing, but a good thing, that keeps me from overcommitting. The property is about 45 feet wide, and the distance from the house to the back fence is about 15 feet, though that's mentally divided into thirds: the grassy part behind the driveway is about 16 feet deep, while the part behind the house has bulkhead and toolshed pushing in from one side, and a swerve in the fence pushing in from the other, for about 9-10 feet of grass. Then there's a cement patio out the back door, with a 1 to 2 foot wide planting bed between the patio and both the back and side fence segments. All told, there's about 12 linear feet of sunny bed, 10 feet of partial sun, and 10 feet of shady bed, plus another 20 feet of partial sun on the side and 25 feet of full sun in front that's currently all ornamental.
Questions pile up into three categories - planning the vegetable garden that's confined to the beds along the back yard fence, making the ornamental plantings in the front and side beds include more plants I like, and my burning desire to grow "something permanent" and something that provides food (talking a small tree with either great fall color or great spring flowers, or a small fruit tree, or a blueberry bush, or other fruit-bearing thing like a grapevine some such)
I will go crazy if I try to vent on all this while finishing my pre-work coffee. More later.