Pinterest Challenge: Day Two

This one is cheating a little bit.  We have been working on this one for a while, but we just finished it on Tuesday (day two).  So, I am going to go ahead and say that this one is my Day Two challenge.

I am not in love with our back yard.  When we moved in, it was just a wasteland that had some weed like grass growing in it.  The previous owners had dogs and they really tore it up back there.  It is a nice big back yard, but needed a lot of work.  My husband is pretty good at grass growing and had the grass looking good within a year or two of us moving in.  We don't have a sprinkler system so we are lawn jockeys but it looks pretty good for no sprinklers.  We also got to work and planted some trees in the back yard so we could have some shade.  Do you know how expensive trees are?  Especially big trees.  So, we went with little trees and just have had to let them grow.  I love our trees.  They are really pretty and in the fall the leaves turn the most beautiful colors.  We had to replace one of them the next year after we planted it because it died, but that was 8 years ago and it is finally getting bigger!

I have always wanted to have a garden and after a few years of living in this house Chris tore up some of the side grass and made me a garden.  A few more years went by and I wanted a bigger garden and I wanted to get rid of the grass on the side of the house (which never recovered from previous owner because it had a weird slope and watering was tricky).  So we moved the garden over to the side of the house and put in a sand box for the boys where the old garden was.

Makai and Tanner "helping" with the sandbox.  May 25, 2008- 7 days before JJ was born

It has been a good spot except that the slope still made for tricky watering and not very much grew in the back part of the garden.  So, I found some "cheap" garden boxes on Pinterest.  My husband jumped on board (God bless him!).  This year for Mother's Day he told me he was going to make me some garden planters.  I was so excited.

Don't you love all of those things on Pinterest that tell you that the project only cost $10?  Well I found one of those and Chris thought he could do it pretty cheap.  Then I had a stroke of brilliance.  Up at the cabin we had a bunch of old wood from when we put in a new deck.  I suggested using that for the planters.  Yeah!

Yes, the wood was free and we already had screws (left over from building a deck in the backyard 11 years ago).  So it was a free project.....right?  Except we had to pay for gas to get up there, dinner and breakfast for friends who brought their truck up there and helped load the wood and bring it home, dirt to fill the planters, weed barrier and staples, mulch to go around the boxes, delivery of mulch and dirt and plants (because by the time we were done with them it was too late to start them from seed).  Totally free, right?

"Free" wood!

Work in progress

Delivery.   Almost as much as the materials!

Boys will be boys!

Tamping down the dirt.  Felt so good under your feet.....until they found out it had manure in it.

Tanner and Jameson were my "garden protectors"

Zucchini

A view from the back corner by the fence to the front yard

A view looking from the grass toward the side of the house.

But soooooooo worth it!  I LOVE my backyard so much more now.  I still could use some stairs and a railing for my 11 year old deck and some more work on the other side of the house, but I no longer feel like I totally live in white trashville.  Oh, except the pile of dirt that is still in my front yard from last year's fiasco.  But guess what!!!!???  We have some left over dirt, wood and mulch that we are hoping to make into this....

Perhaps you will see this on a future Pinterest Challenge!  This is from my "Outdoor" board.  I deleted the original "garden planter" pin last week while I was reorganizing my pins (before I came up with this challenge).

Happy Pinning!