New mound, keyhole and spiral gardens updates

A bit back this year I posted about 3 new gardens I turned my dirt piles into. They were just mounds of dirt and naturally weeds, some mostly annuals ... well except of bindweed naturally...

Bed 1 before... yep inside of it were these 4 inch thick concrete plates... ok maybe by tractor... it turned out there were several of these below... how many... My big old huge iron rod detected maybe 3 of them...

There was no way I would be able to move and dispose that, so I asked and looked and found that it's possible to go up above concrete. I'll also try to place mint in there, lemon balm

After

Some clump grass I did not remove. And there is some bindweed coming up there which I'll deal with.
Some of borrage took even in the heat wave, it's good.
here I'm putting my volunteers I need to move, even if 1-2 will take I'll have a decent borrage colony there, and mint does like foot of compost, I also moved these plates so there is space in between them filled with compost...
Around it sunchokes and Chinese artichokes. These if take they will cover, Chinese artichokes are mint family, they are moisture loving so, but they do make a solid cover and out-compete everything.
With bindweed I do not mind. lemon mint also competes quite successfully with everything.
I'll be putting drip irrigation on this. For now, hose and manual will do as I'm working on the things...
also some pumpkins are planted on the base-bottom level of it, free seeds, they grow they grow, they do not make it and bugs eat it... oh well

Mound 2 was a round mound , smallest of the 3 'front ones'... there are also 2 C shaped back ones I've mulched for now (ridding of cheat grass there... and looks like some bindweed too)

This one I turned into keyhole garden in March
Because i's cold compost lasagna bed I put there squash... An unexpected outcome... poplar fence is... growing... well I need to deal with that one, do not need me odd ball poplar trees in there.

I also planted 3 caragana trees in there around it... i hopes of turning this into shade salad bed with time and getting several crops out of it a year, for how squash and pumpkins...


Spiral garden was 3-rd mound, next to the apple tree. From

To planted with perennials. It's a bee garden that will look like a front bed when it fills in
Some Irises are planted on outside of it and will feed from run off water. I'll put drip system there as well
At the bottom majoram (spicy perennial, a trade-gift from fellow gardener), iris at the base on outside, will come up next year, hyssop (tht one is deep purple)

 Top is crocosmia lucifer, a bit of winter savory and purple liatris. These supposed to be peranials and should fill very nicely and hopefully naturalize so I can propagate from there

 couple penstemons. I did seed some red kale (seeds were trade, so possible too old or birds/mice took care of it...) so I planted instead... Yellow Echinacea, that one will need a shade cone, it's having trouble in 90F+ heat wave a big time

at base are squashes overflow. More hissop (in hopes to propagate these.

Also Corsican voilet (supposed to be perennial), I'll add Rudbeckia fulgida at the base in couple areas too, propagated that, and lemon balm.

 Near by apple tree and majoram planted there at the base

Saskaton and currants are bushes, white currant was a risky transplant (and if something I have more currants, but wanted a different root stock and shared main bush with neighbor so hopefully not all lost) if roots are watered it will shoot from the root.

 salvia and some bush beans and foxtail like plant... what's it's name... have to dig up the label if not recycled already

For this bed I tried to go bear root bee garden, but 4 plants made it with all the wild weather and no green house. Couple of Kniphofia hirsuta Fire Dance (Fire Dance Dwarf Poker) lived and planted there in my spiral garden. I should have planted these bare root into the dirt.  I had better luck with costco bare root flowers this way. When I tried them in pots one year (columbines and others) they would come up a little and then they are gone in less than a month. I dirt it was much better in my front bed.

 And added large blue columbine, always wanted a blue one... and was unsuccessful last year with 3 in other area, chickens dug those out.

 Also added yarrow... nasturtium did not come up

Wood chips brought some volunteer trees, I'll need to find out what kind, if ash - no go, emerald ash borrower is coming and I'll not plant ash, if that's siberial elm, I'll keep that, it's a spring lettuce tree :)

right now I can not tell what tree is that, there was variety of the hardwood trees brought in chips, and some did have seeds on them it looks like these sprouted where bottoms of wood chip piles were.
so who knows what are they... will see
And in dead heat of summer will see what deserves to live in high mountain desert. If some survive they'd earn their p;ace as donated trees already if I can not use them as wind block. Ash will ash to go so, I'm not spraying my entire area  for ash borrower for many years to come, there is no other way around it, it's here and is infesting area after area, several counties are undef federal quarantine (meaning ll the wood stays in there) our county is not one of them, but quarantined county is only 20-50 miles away, It was seeing near by, not in official governments traps yet,
Quarantine means all the removed by tree service wood stays in, it means if tree service had ash it was from our county (no quarantine or other like our county place), we do not have ash in subdivision, there are some mature ones a bit far in suburban areas, but I'll not be planting any ash, it's that simple. If these volunteer trees are  ash I'll let them go into the soil and become soil. That's my way of dealing with emerald ash borrower - no trees for it to eat in my place, and there will be none.