Labor Day's labor

I meant to post this last week but I've been busy this week willing my little bits lungs to work better, breathe deeper and running them here and there for appointments.
Labor Day weekend was spent with an extra day off of work on Holiday and here is how we decided to spend that time:

The old bed by the front door was taken out and a new retaining wall was erected along the entire length of the fence and house. Now I'm starting to feel better about the house and the yard. It's starting to look like something that I would create. The HOA team was diligent to say the least. We were stared at and taken pictures of but so far no notices have been received. It seems to have past inspection. Darn well better have! We took the old outdated bricks and made new rings around the baby oak trees (foreground) and the date palm in the middle of the yard. Although the date palm will become a MUCH larger planter by winter with the same matching retaining wall in a kidney shape. We are trying to fly under the radar as much as possible AND trying not to kill my back entirely while doing the work ourselves.

Once the work on the wall was finished I set to work to fill in the gaps you can see in that picture. So, while we upgraded the wall I decided to sneak in a few new edibles to the front yard. Some of my bigger bull cane blueberries.... 

I think they fit in extremely well with the existing landscaping and don't call attention to themselves at all.  Heck no one will even realize what they are until the berries blush that light blue hue the day or two when they are the best. I think the best part about it is that they will be in bloom in the early spring before the hibiscus and ixora behind them are in bloom so the yard will have more color for it. These bull canes are located about 20' from 2 other bulls that are near my front window and are the same size and age(about 3-4 years of age)

I also added a permisson tree and a few of the little baby yearling blueberry plants. They look so sweet and innocent here.

No one dare suspect a thing. They will grow right in with the landscaping come spring and the persimmon next year will be well over the fence line. If all goes well come September it will be providing us a small first crop of wonderful orange fruit. Just don't tell the neighbors. Hopefully they will try them when they first turn ripe and see that they are OH so sour and bitter. SHHH.... don't tell them to wait until the fruit softens a little. My girls are most excited about this tree, they love the fruit.

And, since my poor heart can't take seeing saplings all alone in a pot withering in the heat at the nursery marked down and on sale this apple tree came home as well. Don't worry this is not an orphan it will be pollinated, just the other side of the fence is the play yard and it is surrounded with (3) apple tree saplings. Anna and Dorset- too bad I didn't get those trees on clearance! I may not get a lot of apples the first year but I don't think we are moving any time soon and I can see many jars of applesauce in my future.

There is a tray of purple cabbages awaiting transplant to these beds, as well as some chard seeds to be sown and perhaps some broccoli as well. In the spring there are some pretty big plans for a large section of Okinawan Spinach the kids eat it like crazy and Amaranth as well as some new trials for a couple seeds I've been putting off until I did this work, Rat tail radishes for one this interests me a lot and a few other things, too.

Ah, but I digress. I must shut up at some point. Off for nebulizer treatments and rocking of small children. I love that they will still let me rock them and hold them, at least when they are sick anyway.

'Till next time!

Barbie~