My little slice of heaven (Month #3)

Although no one asked, this morning I took a few snaps of our backyard, and thought I would share:

Tough to see, but from left to right, we have basil in the first container, green onions in the second, and a huge series of heirloom and grape tomatoes. Sadly, the mongoose and vermin love them too, so we rarely get any these days. Jerks.

These are our three citrus trees- two are dwarf (orange/tangerine), and the mango we will keep low and small like a giant bonsai! Those babies can get huge, although this species (Julia) should stop at about 20-feet...and I'm hoping to stay at about 8 feet. Last year we had 1 mango, this year, we look like we're going to double that! I'll be sure to invite folks over to share the bounty.

As we pan over to the other side, you can see our pineapples and green/red leaf lettuces.

And panning right from there, we have our succulent collection! These babies took years and many $s to accumulate.

No self respecting islander doesn't have a compost bin for green waste these days. It's a petri dish of every organism/insect on the island, but it's also super cool making your own fertilizer/soil and smells amazing. We started our bin maybe 4-5 years ago, and have generated enough 'gold' to dump onto most of our citrus trees once a year.

And...last but not least, we have our recyclable bins for sorting right next to the compost bin. I also use the area to house my extra flower pots and pot up my succulents for others. It doesn't look like much, but they're my happy place. Rich built both the compost bin and potting station for me out of recycled materials we had from other projects. Initially, he tried using an upcycled baby crib for the compost bin, then a pallet...but all fell apart in the elements over the years, so we have a more permanent structure now that should last at least a decade.

This place is sort of my sanctuary, and becomes moreso once my nephews have trimmed the grass every other week. ;-) I love it out there, and would love to camp out and live there, except I am a mosquito magnet, and sometimes get nibbled to the point of madness.

Our front yard has it's own appeal, blooming pink plumeria, cherry tomatoes and pineapples. However, it's soon to be 'under construction' with a project I hatched up during quarantine. Unfortunately, it's going to be about double the cost of what I'd anticipated. However, once it's done, it'll be a lifetime of convenience.