What a Difference A Year Makes

Tomorrow is the first anniversary of my xeri-garden, and wow! Building it was hard work, but I enjoyed every minute and like anything that's difficult, the pleasure is directly proportional to the hard work!

The best part, tho, is that it does appear to be self-sustaining. I watered for the first month or two (June and July last summer) when it was particularly dry - to be sure that the plants got off to a good start. But since last fall I have not provided an extra drop. We had a wet winter and so far it continues to be a wet spring, so it has gotten plenty of water, but it's looking great. It still needs to fill in a lot, but that will come with time.

Almost wish I had another big project for this summer, but am feeling lazy so far, so will just see what develops!

This photo is for Cherise at The Money Pit. She has recently put in some raised beds, but is having critter difficulties. Mitchell built raised beds several summers ago for our veggies, and made these nice chicken-wire "covers" for them. The one on the left also has a frame with a lattice to support the tomatoes as they grow.

The covers have a 1 x 2" frame with chicken-wire stapled to it - one in each direction and then we used plastic tie-wraps to hold the two layers of chicken-wire togethers and keep the corners tight. They keep the rabbits and other small critters out.

We have big problems with the rabbits every other year. There is a small farm at the end of our street where the farmer alternates corn with soybeans. In the soybean years the rabbits dine there. But they are too short to reach the corn, so we have lots more rabbits in the corn years. Unfortunately, this is one!