Its a solar eclipse tomato from MIGardener!
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yay i love tomato season!!
i got an indigo kumquat tomato that makes smaller fruits with similar coloring. it was described as an orange tomato with indigo shoulders and i just love the idea of a tomato having shoulders 
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setting four flagstones and was literally dripping sweat. Took a lot of negotiation and jigsaw tests to get to something we can probably live with.
4 ferns were the fee for the extra square footage.
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My nectarine is just finishing flowering, and one of my plum trees has just started! The plums are much less prolific than the nectarine (and also possibly don’t get as many chill hours as they’d like), but they burst into leaf sooner too, so it should be looking quite green by mid September!
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Someone clipped my zinneas 
it’s kind of near the sidewalk but what the heck you can’t just take people’s flowers!! I hope they grow back, they are a beautiful red/orange/yellow color.
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Assholes! I can’t believe they stole them.
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I hope they at least get to enjoy the beautiful flowers and I’m glad I have more growing other places. I thought it was an animal at first but it’s way too consistent and straight.
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You are more generous than me - I’d be like “I hope the flowers gave them an allergy attack” or something
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How inconsiderate! I hope the pruning encourages future growth. But, are you sure it wasn’t deer? They make pretty clean, consistent cut too.
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My deer-cut stems look like that.
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Today my giant lavender bush was reduced to about 1/4 in size by me. I love that it was super big but it took over the entire flower bed. TBD if it survives after winter, but it is now a much more manageable size. It was about 5 feet across, and now it’s down to about 2 feet or less.
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I have never seen a deer in my neighborhood because we are pretty urban but it could have been?
A bunch bloomed today so at least we got some of their beauty back.
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If anyone wants to look at them, seedtherapy.com has a lot of nice flowers all at 1/2 off, plus I used a code TAKE20 for 20% more off. I got 15 packets for around $30 including the $4.99 shipping charge. This spring I had found them on Etsy and bought some things but I was not aware they had a website which is easier to use. They also have vegetables but I did not look at those.
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Okay y’all I need help! I’m trying to decide how I want this space to be my garden next year. It is 14’x17’ and there is a slight slope starting about half way through the 14’ dimension. It gets full sun, I have a drip line running right through it so easy access to water.
Do I add raised beds? Do I do in-ground beds? How tall should I do the beds? 15” or 29”? What do I do about the slope in the space?
I’m hoping to grow veggies and flowers. I have three other raised beds already in a different part of the yard- 8’x4’x17” 10’x2’x29”, 8’x4’x25”.
If I do raised beds I could get rid of a lot of that wood by putting it in the bottom of them.
I want it to also be aesthetic and maybe put an arch trellis between beds?
Or should I switch and just do a full perennial low water pollinator garden?
I feel pressure to get a plan soon with Labor Day sales and fall leaf cleanup is a great time to get new beds set up.
If I do raised beds I plan to put logs and branches and goat poop in the bottom then soil. I’m not sure what I need to know if I do just an inground situation.
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I can see where the main part of the slope is, but is it flat at the top and the bottom? A little hard to tell from those angles. I ask because an in-ground pollinator garden would definitely be the easiest option for the sloped part 
. You’d have to do some major leveling for raised beds or terraces for in-ground beds on the slopes for most veggies, I think, because that looks like enough where there’d be significant erosion.
If there’s flat at the bottom, you could put a veggie bed or two (depending on the size) at the bottom, and perennials on the slope to keep it stable.
If you do in-ground beds for the veggies at the bottom, you’ll take advantage of water naturally making its way down the slope. You probably have lots of clay, but I’ve had a lot of success using a broadfork to do an initial mix-in of compost and better dirt to improve the soil. (I have this broadfork and it’s great - even Brown Bear loves to use it, lol).
Otherwise, you could do raised beds at the bottom, just you’d have to depend more on drip line or other watering systems.
How big is the full area?
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I’m biased toward a pollinator garden directly in the ground, because they’re amazing! And also would be the easiest option with the slope. You could also do some edible perennials toward the front to help with your food production goals - I love mixed-use beds.
If you want more veggie space, we built some raised beds into a slope at our last house, and they were fairly easy to put in. If you dig them into the slope though, you will need to use a type of material that won’t rot easily (metal, maybe cedar). Blank slates are fun but also overwhelming sometimes!
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ok this is a great point and once again Ginja I’m gonna tell you about my lord and savior golden currants 
. Native, amazing flowers, pollinator-friendly, lower water, and tasty tart-sweet berries hehehe.
Although you would want to make sure any currant bushes are as far north as you can/not gonna cast shadows on things that need sun, because they can get tall.
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Raised beds are resource intensive - they need to be built, they require new soil, the plants in them need more water than in ground plants.
If everything else is equal, go in ground imo. It’s gentler on the earth.
If there are compelling reasons to raise the beds - bad backs, contaminated soil, some other reason - go raised.
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The full area is 14’x17’, I can measure the sloped vs unsloped parts! We do have more space technically but it would block the path from the gate.
I like the idea of the perennials on the slope and the veggies at the bottom.
Our whole yard right now that isn’t grass is landscape fabric and tire mulch. We can move the tire mulch to some other sparse areas of the yard.
Okay twist my arm!! I wonder if I’ll get them before the birds and squirrels though!
This is so true! One thing I was looking forward to was finding a use for that giant pile of wood logs but that desire doesn’t necessarily outweigh the amount of work for the beds+soil.
Okay I’m now thinking I like the idea of inground with pollinator hill! I love the point that the hill will give water to the bed below.
I have some fresh questions:
What should I do with all of my yard waste and debris? I was originally planning to fill the raised beds with them. I have a pop up/foldable compost bin I can put extra leaves in.
What are some ways to make an inground bed look pretty? Should I plan a brick border or some other kind of border?
How and when should I prep it? Layers of cardboard with goat poop and compost on top? Use the broad fork to put in compost then cardboard for the winter then more compost? Wait until spring? Should I go to the free mulch pile and get woodchips to top over the winter?
Do I need to do anything to grade or prep the hill for the pollinator garden? I have a big list of fun natives from @panda that I will for sure be turning into my shopping list.
I also don’t have to use the goat poop but it is free and compost can be $$$.
I think I will be able to do 2 rows of 15-17’ in the space if I assume the flat part is 7’ wide.
If I want to add raised beds there are other spots in the yard that might be a better fit. But maybe I’ll hold off until next fall after another year in the house.
Thank you for helping with all of my questions! This is only my second season gardening and last year was amazing and this year was a flop. I still have so much to learn!!
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Question: is this like literally mulch made from rubber tires? If it is, not to be too hippy/dogmatic, but I would strongly recommend you get rid of it entirely - that kind of mulch leeches nasty stuff into the soil below, and it does nothing to improve soil quality as it breaks down (it only does the opposite, lol)
I bet you will! I still have quite a few on my bushes and I have tons of birds and aggressive squirrels in my yard.
Keep it!! The foldable compost bin sounds great, or if you have a corner of your yard where you can pile it to just hang out, that’s great too. Overwintering pollinators love that shiz
Do you have some way to chop those logs up a bit, or know somebody who could? Those would look amazing as a border and would contribute to soil health over time. I wouldn’t do any border that requires digging into the dirt (like for a metal edging border, or even maybe brick), as you don’t want to block the flow of water.
What’s the surface now - is that mulch? And are you wanting to plant this fall or wait till spring?
Either way, I’d definitely do your prep now, but how you prep will be different. If you want to plant this fall, I’d clear the surface, broadfork compost/goat poop/nicer dirt as needed (and also if your soil is super compacted clay, add expanded shale from Harlequin’s as you broadfork it). Then plant, then mulch, then water, then prosper.
If you want to plant in the spring, I’d clear the surface, till in with a broadfork some compost/goat poop/better dirt, cover with cardboard, WATER that shiz thoroughly, then another layer of compost/goat poop/better dirt, water again, then mulch, the wouldn’t hurt to water again. This is very similar to what I did for a whole side of my house last fall (minus the goat poop, lol and I used unbleached/all natural butcher paper-type stuff instead of cardboard). I planted straight into it this summer and it was really, really good dirt.
All the watering between layers helps stuff not slide/blow around and helps start the decomposition process, since Colorado is so dry. If we have extended dry/windy stretches in fall and winter, you may want to consider watering that along with any established trees/shrubs, just to make sure things don’t completely dry out.
Note on the goat poop - I would still recommend using regular compost and dirt in addition to the goat poop bc I’m guessing the goat poop is still pretty hot and not fully aged. But a combo of all three should be delicious for the soil organisms!
You could do a light round of broadfork with compost - like, not full on tilling with the broadfork, but basically covering the ground with a layer of compost and then using the broadfork to poke holes to get some of that compost in for it to start the magic. Then just amend the soil as needed when you’re actually digging the holes for the plants.
No grading should be needed - I’ve planted native perennials straight into slopes and it’s been fine.
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