one planter down...

After all of the much appreciated hard work that Ryan’s parents put in during their visit to Chicago, the house and yard are making big progress!  The last weekend of their stay, Ryan and his dad were able to pretty much finish the first backyard planter.  As you can see, we still need to add top soil so we can put all these plants into the ground. But doesn’t it look nicer already with a little green in there?  

Ryan and his dad were also able to get the form work built for the concrete curb on the second planter.  In order to do so, we had to take down a stretch of the old wooden fence.  Now you can see our new fence from the backyard.  Since the new one is set up on the concrete pad, we were also able to gain about a foot of space in the backyard which helps make it feel bigger too.  Nice.

With a lot more staining labor by Christina and Katherine, we were also able to put up one more fence panel on the side of the house.  This was very exciting because it hides most of the view of the ugly lot next door to us.  It really helps make the yard feel more private and pleasant. 

Finally, an exciting event – Ben’s cherry tree is producing fruit for the first year! 

We enjoyed our first delicious, yellow sweet cherries this week.  They were soooo good!  We are looking forward to enjoying all the other edibles we are growing throughout the season (tomatoes, beans, peppers, apples, herbs, etc.). Yay for green gardens, even in the city!