Yard Update

Yard progress is sooo much slower than house progress, so it’s been a while since I have posted anything. Not that we haven’t had lots of mini victories – we have – but that kind of blogging takes some serious time and effort. Time and effort that could be better spent actually doing the work! So, I apologize that this is a magic-of-television style post, but we suddenly have a shed and garden!

But before the unveiling, here’s a before pic for reference. This was our yard one year and four days ago:

Our back yard was sporting a dog-potty area while the rest was dirt, getting prepped to seed. Jonathan and his brothers put in a concrete pad for the shed in the corner {the junky dog kennel was in the yard when we moved in and we sold it online for a few bucks}.

And here’s that same little recessed area today:

I know, right?

Jonathan built the shed himself with a little help from his brothers and a neighbor. I love it – it’s just adorable. The blue really pops in our beige neighborhood {in a very good way}.

We fenced it in because Miss Paisley just cannot stay out of things. That’s a story for another day when we may consider ourselves puppy-proofing experts but right now we are still learning as we go.

We built the raised beds this winter. They are nothing fancy but they are perfect.In the picture above you can also see my really sad composting attempt {the green bin to the left of the shed}. I really need a better system. I’m basically creating a bin of smelly garbage. The little box in front of the shed is an old ammo box I got at a junk yard, and I planted some herbs in it. The yellow pot has a cherry tomato.

In the beds:

• three varieties of heirloom tomatoes
• red and green bell peppers
• jalapenos
• yellow onions
• dragon tongue beans
• calypso beans
• peas
• Napa cabbage
• bok choy
• carrots

We installed little garden bed sprinklers and I planted a couple weekends ago. Everything’s already making crazy progress!

This is one happy herbivore right now.:)

Because it’s fun, I want to list of all the things we’ve done in the yard in the 14 months we’ve been here:

• Finished the fence and installed gates on either side of the house
• Put gravel in the RV pad area {was weeds}
• Dug out the grass, leveled
• Installed sprinklers
• Seeded the lawn
• Put in flower beds along the front {planted many bushes and flowers and trees in them}
• Planted FIFTEEN trees {seriously!? 15?}
• Built a shed
• Built raised garden beds
• Started seeds indoors {which yielded about a 20% success rate..}
• Put in a vegetable garden
• Fenced in the vegetable garden and laid down pea gravel
• Installed an outdoor ceiling fan on the covered deck
• Got solar LED garden lighting for front flower beds

There’s more to do:

• Dig out a walk-out patio under the deck
• Extend the size of the deck, and paint it
• Build a compost bin from pallets
• Put a flower garden on other back corner {across from the shed}
• Organize the shed and garage
• Get some paving stones for the garden
• Put an arbor around the garden gate
• Install a path from the deck stairs to the back gate
• Build a fire pit area
• Plant grass in the part strip {or maybe wild flowers if I can get husband on board!}
• … I am sure this list will keep evolving

I’ll have to post on my seed-starting experience because it’s totally funny. It was a complete experiment and failure {because it wasn’t puppy-proofed more than anything}. More yard posts to come – our front yard is really coming together nicely, too. YAY summer! What are you all working on?

 

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