Sully, You paint such vivid pictures with your words! I just loved your description of how your back yard changed through the years from the time your children were real little, then moving through their ‘tween years, through their teen years, and on through the subsequent years when your back yard became yours to do with as you wished for yourself. Thank you for this delightful essay. Donna Peachtree City, GA From: Shirley Sullivan Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 10:58 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [ML] Gardens and back yards Good morning dear friends GARDENS Loved the mental picture of your yard Robert. First let me tell you Robert, you will be in my prayers, for a good surgery and fast recovery. It is still early spring, I know how hot it gets by late May in a desert community, hoping your shoulder will be on the mend, by the time summer arrives. Jeannie, that was great, all the info about soil and different ways to plant veggies and flowers. I have seen a Tomato plant growing in a bag of planting mix at our Home depot, I have never tried it my self, but it would be a quick way to plant things, especially if your soil needed a lot of amending. We have lived in this home, now over fifty years. Our first son was a year and a half when we moved in, the back yard was first made a safe place for my children to play, we had a swing set, sand box, and we put in a round circle of cement on one side so the children could ride their tricycles, but put a hole in the center so we could eventually put a tether poll out there, for playing tether ball when they got older. Later we put up a basketball hoop, we built a tree house in a Jacaranda tree for the boys, than my husband built them a castle, with a draw bridge. Looked pretty cool, if I must say so myself, the children in our neighborhood loved come to our house to play. Our daughter loved to play on the bar at school, and because it was so popular, and felt she didn't get her turn enough, asked her father to build her one at home here. So he went up to school, and measured the bar, and put one in the back yard for daddy's little girl, and it's still there, it is so smooth! now after years of children playing on it, I now dry my bathroom rug on it, so as not to ruin the backing of the rug. He also built our daughter a play house, but it never really got finished right, she grew faster than he got around to painting and finishing the inside, so it became a storage shed to some degree after she lost interest in it. The Castle turned into a Pigeon coop for our youngest son, when he was about 15, the draw bridge was removed, the stilts sawed off and the building lowered to the ground, and they built nesting boxes for the birds inside, I wasn't into Pigeons and the mess they made, but my husband had Pigeons when he was a boy, and our son loved them. As our three children grew into young teenagers, the yard changed, the Castle/Pigeon coop was torn down, Pigeons long gone, play house gone, tree house gone. My husbands mother, her husband passed away and she moved in with his sisters, we bought the mobile home they had once lived in [for a song] and ! moved it up to the Colorado River, and so began our years of Water ski ing, Jet skiing, Dirt biking, and the boys driving the Jeep around the RV park trying to impress girls. One of our boys friends since childhood, practically lived at our house [his parents were going through patch] and he went with us everywhere, I now had three son's. I loved that boy, he was a good kid too, grew into a fine man. As our now adult children married and moved away, my love of making a beautiful gardens began. We have a slight hill at the back of our property, first we built a wall about four feet high towards the back, to keep back the hill, and planted fruit trees at the top of the wall, than made a low wall at the front of about maybe 2 feet, than filled in the space with good soil [ at least I thought it was good soil, but later learned it needed a lot of Amendment] leaving about 10 feet of fine growing space. Part of the garden was for growing Tomatoes and veggies [until we found out you couldn't keep growing Tomatoes in the same place, year after year] a! nd part was for my flowers. We also had planted a Apple tree on one end, and a Lemon tree close to the other end. Since than we have planted a Avocado tree, a Gala Apple tree, a white Peach, and a white Nectarine, all closer to the house. Of course we have the fruit trees on top, a Red apple, a Plum, a pear, and two Apricots and a large Fig tree. More to come !!! Sully, in Sunny California P.S. Was up for the sunrise, such a beautiful morning, warm and clear, but sadly it is to change, clouds this afternoon, cooling down, and fog tomorrow morning. We will have low clouds and overcast in the morning for several days. But all is not lost, good weather for working in the yard !!! http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mbousman1/memory.htm ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message