Progress is being made!

And I am developing some muscle!  It is all slow going as my asthma is acting up due to some medication I am taking for the hip injury.....sort of a catch 22 situation! 

 We laid out the paths with some of the extra gravel, and put in the fence posts for the espaliered trees.  The rain barrels and self watering planters will keep people from ever trying to park or walk in the garden!

This picture is four days after a torrential rain.  Picture this with water so deep it covered the path paving stones in several places!!  Dirt delivery was delayed while I dug a channel through the parking pad to drain it.

We spent the long weekend cobbling together more self watering planters.  We will have line of four of them along the chain link fence with pole beans to hide it.

We planted a green and a purple grape at the join in the two panels but the grape vines will take a few years to grow up and make the fence attractive.  I am going to do a triple cordon with the main stems twisted around each other and green and purple cordons alternating on both sides. (Being an artist sure makes gardening complicated!)

The dirt was delivered with only four inch deep ruts left in the edge of the parking area and the foot of the garden.  It was a BIIIG truck!  Ten yards of dirt looks like this.  Had to dump it in the middle as there was a phone wire in the way.

 The local Robin thinks it should be a wealth of worms.  I hope it will be too, but for now it is pretty wormless.  It has dirt, sand, peat moss and manure.  Num.  I just want to run my fingers through it!  DH says yuk!

 The trees were planted before the dirt arrived.  We dug half holes, put in the trees and then built up to the graft line with potting soil.  We filled in around after the soil arrived.  First is a Nor-Kent Apple, second is a Manor Plum, then a Crimson Passion Cherry and finally three Honey Berry bushes which are not self fertile.  We had to replant the last one as it washed out in the deluge.  Thirty feet of espaliered orchard  only two feet wide and paths both sides for harvesting.....I am an optimist......

Bless our little birds.  We fashioned a temporary birdbath which they refused to even notice until we put a little forest around it.  I wonder what they will do when we plant the forest in the garden.

1. This is an extra picture that I do not know how it got here, and cannot figure out how to delete.

We worked hard all weekend.  I was supposed to go to a fabric dying day on the Monday with my stitching group, but my DH gave me a sad-eyed puppy dog look and said that if I would stay home with him he would be my slave-for-a-day in the garden.  He won't admit it but he enjoys gardening as much as I do, but he is not too enamoured with the initial set up of a brand new space, it is a powerful lot of work!

We are a pair of cane-toting old folk, and do a lot of sitting enjoying each other's and the bird's company between spurts of strenuous work!!

DH has been bringing home perennials that we had farmed out last fall when we were told we had to move.  Quite a few did not make the winter, but we have a lot of lilies, iris, a painted daisy, a false sunflower, and something that we have no idea what it is.  We may have transplanted a magnificent weed!

I will be picking up a beautiful rhubarb from our old garden tomorrow.  It was given to me by a good friend and has sentimental value.  I think I will pick up some of the horse radish as well. (I left some roots and had great fun imagining the horse radish erupting up through the floor behind the new teller cages!  I'm baaad!)  (Construction has been delayed on the new Credit Union, they are haggling with the Town over parking....or so the rumour goes....). 

The beds are filling.  I want them to be a good foot higher in the centre but will wait to see how much dirt is left.  The harvesting path looks a bit like a drunk laid it!  Blame that on my meds!  Kind of quirky though.

The trees are all nicely nestled in, and there is some green coming after only six days...WOW!  That's Boughen Nurseries in Valley River, MB.  Last year was their 100'th Anniversary.  Everything is guaranteed to leaf out and their service is great. (The owner's wife and I used to show horses together many many moons ago.)

I gotta go as I have been sorely neglecting my office work......not as much fun as gardening!