A gardener's summer

As my Seattle friends and family are well aware, this summer has been less than ideal for getting out and spending quality (read - sunny) time outside. While the rest of the country has been sweltering in the heat, it's been record cool temps and wet days here until the past few weeks. However, for a gardener, it has been pretty decent.

This past spring, I decided our backyard needed a makeover to go along with the new deck I installed last fall.  Because of some poorly manufactured Trex decking, I was forced to rip out the old decking and install new decking.  Thanks to myi father's guidance and tools, I was able to accomplish this task within about 4 weeks.

When we moved into our house 3 years ago, the spacing and look of the yard was perfect.  However, things grow and our backyard was being darkened and swallowed up by trees.  Wanting to provide a nice sunny space to grow fruits and vegetables on our new deck, I started a long process of removing every other evergreen which were each about 15-20 feet tall. Oh yeah, did I mention I did most of them with a handsaw until I managed to borrow a chainsaw?! 

The good news is all of the hard work and serious manual labor is finally paying off. With the opened up backyard, we have had a bumper crop of lettuce this spring, carrots, herbs, tomatoes (though they are still green, making their way to ripe) and some gorgeous flowers (nasturtiums, calla lilies, roses, sun flowers, and a mystery flower that I cannot seem to find the name for - see picture below).



I hope to see everyone tomorrow at the Taste of Main in Old Bellevue, a wonderful fundraiser for the Children's Response Center.  My wife is an honorary board member for this organization and would have been very upset if I had not mentioned it here!