THERE’S NOTING BETTER THAN SITTING AROUND A COZY FIRE PIT ON A COOL SUMMERS EVENING. THIS IS THE FIRST SUMMER USING THE AREA AND TO WARM IT UP WITH A LITTLE COLOR BY DAY I FILLED TWO LARGE POTS WITH BLOOMING ANNUALS!
Today I’m sharing with you a little tour around our backyard fire pit area on a foggy morning. Photos always turn out better when it’s overcast anyway, so it was the perfect morning to show you what I’ve planted and to take a little walk around the area.
This is a family gathering spot. I had no idea how much a fire pit would bring a family together. If you have teen kids I highly recommend it, we actually spend more time as a family in this spot than any other in our home.
My boys, their girlfriends and hubby and I can be found sitting around a fire talking for hours and enjoying all the laughter that goes on. I’ve even started a fire and watched a move out there all by myself when my men folk were out of town working.
It’s such a peaceful spot where we see deer, pheasants, rabbit’s and an occasional snapping turtle in the evenings. And if you’re worried about smelling like campfire smoke after sitting around the fire I have a trick for that and it can be found here.
I’m a low maintenance gardener, I’m no slave to pulling weeds but I did want to add a little color to the area so I decided to plant a few annuals in large pots around the pit this year. If you missed our fire pit build you can see it here.
I have no idea what was in the soil I picked up from our local nursery but everything I have planted in it has flourished and filled in so nicely. I’ll definitely be adding that stuff to my list again next year. The only downfall is the raccoons love it too (insert sad face here). I’ve had a heck of a time with them this year. They’ve pulled up my herbs and like to dig around in the flower pots that contain the soil.
I asked hubby to pick up a live trap, something has to be done and quickly. They’re even leaving me a nice pile of poop on my decks every day. Yuck! And I leave our French doors open when we sleep at night, now I’m afraid I’ll wake up to a family of raccoons in my dining room.
I’m all for loving wildlife but they can’t keep destroying our place. They even ripped off the roof to my Purple Martin house to get to the eggs. I did have my son fix it but I was so disappointed I was looking forward to the baby Orioles this year. For some reason they took up residence in the mansion this year.
If anyone has a good way to keep the critters away please tell me in the comment section, I’m desperate to try anything.
What a beautiful area . . . your fire pit comment gave me the chuckles as it reminded me that fire pits are part of our DNA from sitting around the fire outside of our caves and other humble abodes thousands of years ago.
Jan, loved your comment and what a great way of reminding me of how our people used to live.
What flowers did you use in your pots?
Deanna, There’s quite a mixture….sweet potato vine, coleus, silver falls, striped petunia, and verbena.
Thank you….it was the silver falls I couldn’t figure out, it’s gorgeous and will be added to my flower list next year!
Hi,
I live in the north woods of Wisconsin and we have many raccoons around also. They like to come on my porch and poop, too! I read that ammonia is a smell they are discouraged by. Perhaps you could saturate a few rags with ammonia and leave it where they like to poop. We scrubbed the area first with a bleach solution and that seemed to help some. But we didn’t try the ammonia because the two can’t be mixed… As far as the bird houses, you need baffles to prevent them as well as cats, squirrels, etc. from climbing up the pole or post. Local home improvement stores should have them by the wild bird supplies. And it is a good idea to not leave any garbage, pet food, etc. outside that helps attract them. Hope this helps some.
Kris, Thanks for the tip about ammonia. I can see why critters hate the smell, I do as well. I was wondering if my compost bin was attracting critters. It’s a closed structure but I’m sure they can still smell the food inside.
I would imagine your compost bin IS attracting raccoons, but they also are very good at searching and finding food anywhere. I live in the city in a subdivision and I have a mama and a couple of babies every year about this time who reside in a treeline behind my house but are crazy about the cat food I put out for neighborhood strays. They and the cats co-exist just fine and I haven’t had any damage (except an empty cat food bowl every morning) or seen any poop. They must go back into the woods to do their business, thankfully. I used to trap and relocate them elsewhere to keep them away from the cats, but now until they become an actual problem, I’m letting them and the cats work it out. They seem to get along nicely. We humans could probably learn something from them …..
Dawn, what an awesome fire pit area.
We have a problem with racoons also. They dig in my compost all the time and go after my recycle bins . The only thing that we ever found that worked was a live trap. However, it keeps you busy relocating the racoons , :}