So, this is my garden spot.  It is fenced with split rail (bordering my yard) and tall t-posts with deer netting.  The North side of the garden borders my house.  

View from the deck

View from my yard

View from the gate area in the split rail

View from ground next to deck 

same

View of cheat grass and knapweed in garden area :)

more knapweed.  There is quite a bit of knapweed in the garden spot.  Closer to the south end is mostly native grasses.  There is not much for soil... and a lot of rocks.

Now, the exciting part (at least to me! ) I am planning on following the garden plan of Paul Gautschi, a gardener from Squim, Wa.

Check out the link to a website/film on his garden philosophies. 

Back to Eden Film

Check back to watch and see my progress!

thanks

KimVDR

Look... I now have grass and some flowers and some trees!!!  We hauled in a little of the composted manure that was piled in the back and spread that on the "lawn" and scattered seed in the late summer of 09. Then 2 years ago the high school was cleaning up  an area along the creek where someone had dumped tons of wood chips.  They would haul it for free to anyone who wanted it.  I got 3 truck loads.  I used some of these chips in the flower beds both under the weed block to mound up the beds and on top of the weed block.  (I have some left)

 Catmint or Nepta is one of my favorite plants at this time.  It's the blue/purple flowers.  It blooms most of summer gets nice and big, survives my mountain zone 3 and best of all... the deer really don't seem to like it much.  Yes, they will nip it... but for the most part they leave it alone... and that makes me very happy! :)  The bees and butterflies and hummingbirds do seem to like quite a bit.

 

Stay tuned... I have a new project starting... I'm very excited about it!!! 
Kim

First flower bed that I planted.  Tried to plant native plants and herbs that the deer shouldn't eat... they still did.  Somewhere out there is a well seasoned deer... lol

Wow... I started this blog and only posted a couple of times... we had just moved here.  I went back to find more photos of that time.  You forget things.  I will post new pictures... 3 years later.  The progress and the improvements that we have made (at least I think they are improvements)  In these "before" pictures note the fences, the grass, the deck, the general appearance.  Remember too that these were taken in early June.

Problems...

Problem # 1: DEER

I don't think that deer and gardens go together. I've seen that they eat everything that people plant. I've been researching plants and fences. I don't have much of a yard and there are no trees other than my pine trees. So at this point they don't do much damage because I don't have anything for them to damage. lol...

Problem # 2: ROCKS

There isn't much for soil... I'm truely not exagerating. You cannot put a spade in the ground anywhere on my place and not hit several rocks...

Problem #3: WEEDS

I don't have just any weeds... no, I have Spotted Knapweed in addition to many others.

Hello to anyone who reads this! (lol)

My name is Kim and this is to be my gardening blog. I hope to keep up a chronical of my gardening adventures in the mountains of Montana. We recently moved here. We have 5 acres of ground that is mostly pasture type with a few Ponderosa and Lodgepole Pines. It has pretty much been overgrazed for 10-14 years with anywhere from 2 to 5 horses. (this is my The acreage is divided I guess you can say in 4 parts. The pictures show

you the area to the south of the house. This is to become my garden. It is fenced at this time with smooth wire but I intend to use some type of electric fencing because of my friendly neighborhood deer. We have several around. Also the yard is pretty much non-existent... although we have a lot of Spotted Knapweed, we don't have a lot of grass. There is much work to be done.

I have started a few seeds... some tomatos, basil, rosemary, dill, monarda, hollyhocks, blanket flower and some others. I chose a mixed seed package of heirloom tomatos. There is Omars Lebanese, Dutchman, Djena Lee's Golden Girl, Golden Sunburst, Aunt Ruby's German Green and Black Russian. I think most the seeds germinated... what I am going to do with over 30 to

mato plants I really don't know! If they survive me and produce I plan to give away all extra tomatos that I have!

I just transplanted 28 tomato plants, a few hollyhocks and some of the basil.

I would sure appreciate any advice that anyone has to offer on gardening in the mountains, challenges, deer help and so on!

Thanks for reading!

Kim