Getting it together at the new digs a little bit at a time

I have grown (and purchased) a boat load of plants to fill all the gaps at our new residence.  Last year during the growing season, we still lived in our primary residence that we own.  This year we live in what is the manager's house where I work.  The short story is that so much old plant material had to be removed to make facility updates possible that we are starting from scratch in all respects.

I missed my herb garden this spring when it was not out my back door to snip fresh chives or thyme.  I have no mint for those refreshing summer drinks.  I spent a chunk of change at one garden center that carries a nice variety of modesty priced herbs.  I had no prepared ground to put them in.  I knew that I was going to have to make a few raised beds over old shrub stumps.  I used my collection of cinder block which I used for plant shelving in past years to do just that.  I even put my soil/compost blend in the centers of the block for the annual herbs like basil.  I also have the aggressive growers like mint confined in these holes.  The thyme will have the opportunity to trail down the side.  I alternated annual and perennial herbs in case they successfully winter and start to overflow their cells.  I back dropped the garden with some old trellises for some tomatoes (grape and yellow Sungold cherry type) and cucumbers.  It also is a bit of a privacy screen from the work areas and shade for the hostas on the opposite side of the wall it parallels.  I will also get the strawberry planters in their tower again as that is still the most convenient and best option I have used so far for the Alpine variety I grow.  This also provides a bit of screening which makes the patio feel a bit more intimate in such a spacious environment.

 I have pulled out some old planters from the weeds and placed them around the greenhouses and residence again.  They will provide a nice working height for food crops and our stock plants that we propagate.  It took an operator and equipment to get them out, but I love these old planters that still have plates on them designating the business that sponsored them decades ago.  They ended up at the nursery and were used for a short time before being mothballed.  They really were in the weeds before being pulled out into the spotlight again.  I had to dig out a fair amount of weedy soil so that we can put in some clean composted soil in the tops  One pot is home to my small stature blueberry bushes.  It is easier to transform the soil to be acidic and boggy when it is confined to a limited area.

The compost also came in handy for hilling the potatoes.  Straw adds and extra layer of soil retention in which the potatoes can grow.  It took quite a bit of soil, but the compost farm is just 10 minutes away so another trip was made for the other areas.
In addition to all the new area I have for gardening at the new digs, we still own our home in the city.  It is only 15 minutes away, so checking in is not a huge deal.  However, my daughter and her husband are novice gardeners.  They need the instruction of what is a weed and what isn't.  They have never put trowel to dirt on their own.  I will have to guide them through the season so they can have the most success in their very large gardening environment.  I have not been there for over a month, so there is lots of work to do.
So here it is, three days since I started writing this.  I am finally finishing this in the early hours of my day since I had to let my delivery drivers in for a 6 AM flower drop.  My days start early and end well after my hourly employees go home.  There is a lot of ground to cover in a day, and the work never ends.  Other than the regular frustrations of running a farm, I could not be happier with where I am.