I am one
proud momma. My child likes to play with
worms. I couldn’t be happier.
A few weeks
ago, JD and I started working on our garden beds.
When we first moved into our house, our
backyard was a jungle.
Really, I mean
it.
There was a brick driveway that you
couldn't see because of all the weeds and alley access hidden by small trees.
Most of the nasty stuff is gone, but we are
still battling years of the previous owner’s failure to maintain the yard. See original yard
here.
 |
| This was after we started work |
We’ve always
wanted to grow our own veggies and we even had a small raised garden at our
previous house. It was very successful
in the cucumber and jalapeno pepper department. We hope to have the same luck this year but
with more veggies.
We found a
design plan from Pinterest (seriously, what did I do before Pinterest??) and
tried to it adapt it for what we wanted. We
loved the look of corrugated metal and cedar and new we wanted a large planter
and several of them.
We set out
to build planter #1. It was a bit rough
going and the end result wasn’t exactly what we had envisioned. We wanted it to look rough, but not exactly
that rough.
Planters #2
and #3 were exactly what we wanted and were easier to build than planter
#1 (They were easier because we didn't follow the directions from Pinterest). The most annoying part of building
all of the planters was cutting the metal.
We used a ‘saws-all’ type tool and it worked, but it was just a pain in
the butt. If anyone would like to share
how to cut metal an easy way, please do!!
 |
| 2nd one done! much better! |
After the
planters were built, JD and I had varying opinions on where exactly we wanted
them. Facebook pole time. Sad to say JD’s idea won (although it was
starting to grow on me so I wasn’t too sad to use it).
 |
| my idea: straight in a row along the fence |
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| JD's idea: staggered.....yes, I know, it's a winner |
Once the
planters were in place, we I cut metal mesh to fit in the bottom of each
planter. Hopefully, this will keep the
gophers and moles away from our veggies.
It looked like I had been in a fight with a rose bush once I was
finished. I had scratches all over my
legs and arms. That metal mesh stuff is
one tough cookie (great, now I want a cookie to eat).
After the
metal mesh, we had some large pieces of concrete and large stones we used to
fill up the bottom. Our planters are 2
feet deep, that’s a lot of soil. Once we
had the large rocks/concrete pieces in, we poured in #57 gravel to take up more
space and to help with drainage (no moles getting through to my veggies).
Now time for
the soil. Since we needed several cubic
yards of soil (and gravel), we had it delivered to our alley. Good choice.
Before we
started loading up the garden beds with the filler, we decided to put in worm
towers. We (We?) drilled a lot holes in pvc
piping and buried a portion of it in the soil.
The worm tower is supposed to promote worms carrying compost throughout
the garden bed. We put some dirt, wet
newspaper, grass clippings and compost into the tower to feed the worms.
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| worm towers with a little terra cotta topper |
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| oops box, closest to the bottom |
This is when
we found out CJ likes worms. We would
show her a worm and then let her put it in the garden bed. Once the worm wormed (haha I crack myself
up) its way down in the dirt, CJ would
ask ‘where’s my worm??’. So stinking
cute.
We now have
veggies growing in our back yard:
Tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes
Cucumbers
Squash
Zucchini
Bell peppers
Jalapeno peppers
Onions
Broccoli
Cauliflower
We are still
planning to plant some herbs and maybe a few others. But right now our beds are pretty full. We finished off the garden area with some slate and brick edging. We ran out of room in the beds and had to plant a few plants in pots.
 |
| All planted and ready to grow |
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