Garden/yard update

I know, this is what you've all been waiting for - pictures of our grass! Yay! Just kidding. I know it's boring, but this has been a lot of work this spring/summer, so I have to post it anyway. The real accomplishment here has been turning our backyard into dry, usable space instead of a series of ponds and mud puddles. So it might not be as pretty as before, but I'm still quite happy with the results. And to be fair to the "afters", the "before" pictures were taken in the spring, before all the garden beds grew out of control and began sporting poison ivy.

BEFORE - the area of grass in front of the tree in the center was actually all moss, because this part of our yard was ALWAYS wet and mushy. Apparently the flower beds interrupted the drainage there significantly.

AFTER - It's all been removed. Hardscaping, bushes, a couple trees. We then tilled, graded, and seeded. Because this part of our yard is pretty shaded the seed sprouted really fast. Hooray! And after a few good rainstorms of late we're optimistic we've fixed the drainage problem.

And if you wondered where all the edging stones and stuff ended up...

Some of them became a low retaining wall on the south side of the yard...

Others became our new raised-bed vegetable garden...

But even with that we have a few extra materials lying around. ALL of this came out of our yard. And there are at least two more piles of bricks in another location. The timbers on top of the wall came out, and a bunch of large rocks, fountains, and concrete statues. Just not my style.

It was kind of fun to learn that a ton of the bricks (probably literally!) are really old, handmade clay brick pavers. You know, the kind they used in Nauvoo. We used some of those to build a firepit but I have no idea what to do with the rest. Maybe a mailbox? We'll probably craigslist them soon just to get them out of our driveway!

We also came across 10 or so of these:

Apparently they were made in old St. Louis brickyards by the Laclede Brick Company. I had no idea until researching this that they mined clay from below the city and based their operations in Dogtown. Many of the mines are still there under the city, and sometimes cause sinkholes and all sorts of trouble. Justin says they used to do underground tours. I assume some of the old tunnels were incorporated into the sewage system, but who knows? There were over 50 mines all located in the city area. From what I can tell these bricks are fire bricks, and are about 100 years old. I know, it's an antique brick, but it's still a brick. And I probably should hit myself with it before I grow attached, keep it, and then kick it around the garage for the next 20 years, but I still think it's kind of neat. What would you do with an old, handstamped brick? Keep it? Throw it out? Just wondering.

Anyway, so that's what we've been doing.

And here's the garden close-up, because I'm sure you were wondering.

cucumbers on the left, then tomatoes, peppers in the foreground

black beans - I didn't know the pods turned purple!

my favorite tomatoes - they're flat-bottomed and rather fluted, I can't wait for them to get ripe!

Okay, done.