
So we have been working on our back garden a little at a
time. We have been severely hampered by my need to work on my thesis and, well,
hanging out. It always seems like there is something “more” fun to do that day.
I mean go on a hike outside? Check! Learn to make homemade potato salad? Check!
Watch the new season of HGTV Design Star? Check! I mean the list goes on and
on. We seemed to have kind of lost our mo-jo for working on it. However, this
weekend, we have a nice little breakthrough. We finished hanging the arbor over
the garden entrance. We had the wood for it, and were finally working on
cleaning out the garage, so we got around to actually hanging it up. And you
know what? I am really glad that we did because it really makes the area look
great!

So when we last looked at the garden, the fence was all done
and the gate was finished. We’ve added another garden bed to our little vegetable
area. The plan calls for a total of 4 square beds and 2 rectangle beds. We have
finished one of the rectangle beds, and three of the square beds. We plan to
spread out doing those as they cost about $40 each for the wood, and require
about $20 of dirt. By spreading it over the summer we can manage costs a little
better and they will be ready this fall when we transplant all the strawberry
bushes and grow some winter veggies. Right now, the three beds that we have are
full of produce, probably more than we can eat. It’s been exciting to eat strawberries
and lettuce from the yard. We even have had some green beans and some broccoli.
Soon we will have a million pounds of cherries!
To make the actual arbor, Erik had originally sunk 10 feet
posts into the ground two feet. We anchored them with concrete to make sure
that they would stay stable. To make the top piece, we bought one 12 ft length 2”
by 4” cedar and cut it in half. Erik cut the corners to have nice clean angles.
He then screwed them into the posts using deck screws. To get them level, he
first put in an “anchor screw” that the wood would sit on, leveled it, and then
screwed them in. Afterwards he removed the anchor screw. We added small cedar
strips to the top of the arbor to help the Wisteria grow over the top and have
a place to grow onto.
All in all, the whole garden area is shaping up nicely! We love
all of the different fruits and veggies we are getting. The back corner looks
nice and classy, plus it keeps our lovely inquisitive puppy out!
awesome! i can't wait to tast...i mean, see it.
ReplyDeleteWow! Looks great! I can't wait until the Neil-cherry-picking-Plato-sleep-over-party!!
ReplyDelete