Our Raymond Garden 2003-2004

We bought our new house in the winter of 2002 and sold the old one in the summer of 2003.  We still have the entry for our old Warrenville, IL house on line (although most of the plants you see there have been removed by the evil new owners.)  We inherited many trees, bushes, and flowers here.  We need to kill or prune many overgrown plants and all of the poison ivy.   [Which Marcia got (May 2004) and transferred to Jim. He does not hold it against her, he just wishes she had not held it against him.]   We built the pergola for transplanted clematis last year, and put up the neighborhood's only black gazing globe in our front yard.  This year we built a raised bed out back for vegetables in the spring.  It worked so well we built another one this fall.

We mostly only grew tomatoes and sunflowers last year, but have branched out a lot this year.  We had great success with our first attempt at growing tomatillos.  They were gigantic, and we got a ton.  They fall in the easy to grow category so they look to be a permanent part of our garden.  We also tried the "three sisters" method of gardening used by native Americans.  You grow pole beans up corn, surrounded by pumpkins or squash.   The pumpkins are to keep critters from eating the corn, but that didn't work for us, as something kept knocking the corn over.  We got 2 little baby ears of corn (we stir fried them), a couple of pumpkins, and no beans there at all.  We may try again.

The sunflowers Marcia has been breeding for many years, first accidentally and then on purpose, are getting even better.  They aren't as tall as the ones in Warrenville, but they have many times more blossoms. About 10 feet tall instead of 15, but 120+ flowers per plant instead of about 36.  We are allocating a large space for them to reproduce themselves next year.   We planted lots of tomatoes this year, some yellow heirlooms started from seed, and Early Girl and some plum tomato from Wayne's Daughters down the road.  We got just enough tomatoes to eat (well, we could have eaten more) as the weather was lousy for tomatoes.

We also grew pole beans, and it was much harder than expected.  Marcia made a teepee of long trees and sticks for them, but it fell over the next day.  Then Jim rebuilt it with his more advanced skills.  It fell over again.  Marcia rebuilt it, and finally it stayed up. The pole beans grew and were eaten repeatedly by critters.  Only one escaped having its top eaten off, it did have many leaves eaten.  Others, after being eaten down once or twice, finally produced beans late in the year.

Marcia made a Peace Garden for herbs and salad items and a few flowers right by the house.  It is also a giant sundial (Sandy's daughter Christine's observation) and contains a birdbath. The Peace Garden contained various colors of lettuce, onions, and Swiss Chard, plus radishes, marigolds, cilantro, nasturtiums, bachelor buttons, morning glories, parsley, dill, chives, basil, broccoli, snapdragons, and nicotiana.

We are organic gardeners and also have a prairie area intermixed with the fruit trees and black raspberry bushes.  There was quite a crop of berries this year due to all the rain.  We stopped counting after we froze 11 gallons, then we started making jam as well as freezing them.  Our yard provides much food and habitat for wild creatures.  We've seen finches, woodpeckers, cardinals, robins, blue jays, etc. this spring.   There is a half tame black and white rabbit named Peter that hangs out in our yard, too.  We haven't seen him lately, so we assume something ate him, poor fellow.

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