[ValiantJoy07]

I apologize for being pic heavy ...But this may be the project I am the most proud of, of anything I've ever done. I am thrilled with how far this has come in such a short time!!

This picture is actually quite an "after" in it's own right. Last summer we tore down a giant deck and the rest of the summer was spent on indoor projects with bits of effort to haul off the last of the deck debris. So pretty much the yard went wild... rogue tomatoes plants and pumpkins took over Everything and left a major mess of vines, seeds, and tray in their wake. Imagine a huge giant embarrassing mountain of vines with trash and deck debris and yard waste: that was the before. This was after a Saturday working with DH hauling stuff out and another Saturday if DH digging and leveling and building this lovely raised bed. 0 of remaining deck debris which was piled where the garden bed is in the picture



This was after 4 straight days of my digging and leveling out the yard with a shovel and rake- all on my lonesome! 0

And then seeding it



Then I spent a few hours scrubbing down the gross green fence and dug up a 6x5 (6"deep) patio bed for the hammock to sit in the shade and laid 16 flagstone pavers...
You can see the clean fence and patio in process in the background


It still needs gravel put in, but this gives you the idea...


And here it is in the past few days...
The white post on the right side of the picture was a fence that was attached to the base of the deck (which was also built around the trees that have also been taken down) this gives you an idea if how huge the old deck was. The patio pictured, my Mom and I put down about half last summer and the rest I've also finished this spring. It not perfect but that thing was a bad word to put down I just finished weeding it right after I took this- too bad...


And I also weeded and rediscovered these stepping stones that were put here by the previous owner- they work great by our garden!




And here is the view from the hammock: grin



I cannot believe all the things and skills this yard has taught me. I think the biggest thing being that I love to work out doors.

My current project is the front half of the yard. J pulled out a giant ivy bed back in May
I got all the ivy off to yard waste

But now I need to dig up the entire area (it's taken over with plantains. ) and we're going to take down the pitiful lilac bush (snowy hurricane damaged it almost 3years ago and we took a shoot off and replanted against the fence and it's doing well. Anyway we're going to dig up that whole area (15 feet of it) level it out perfectly, plant a flower bed in a circle about 17foot radius and put an above ground pool (the temporary kind) up in the summers next year. Also thinking about putting up with chicken wire stakes a tall lattice fence with a gate around the area to baby proof the pool,l or we'll be gating that entire area of the yard (might be simpler...) . But that's next spring. just keeping up with the Cucumbers and weeding will do for how.

oh eta a side by side fir the wow factor.