Jun 29, 20218 min read

Garden Update: Landscaping & Rapidly Growing Plants

Creating a dreamy and peaceful garden, a place to sip coffee in the morning and wine in the evening, a place to feel grounded, is all I wanted when I dreamt up these big plans for my garden. This garden of mine is taking off and becoming more and more beautiful, as I put in the hard work and effort to create this beautiful retreat in our side yard.

I've made a ton of progress in our garden these past two months. I had full intentions of having it ready to be planted by Mother's Day weekend and that for sure did not happen.

Due to the cost of wood, we decided to find some free pallets and create raised garden boxes from them. My husband went out to a factory business about an hour from us and came home with a trailer load! These were hefty and heavy pallets. They struggled to put them on the trailer and we struggled even more getting them off.

We found out quickly that taking the pallets apart was a pain in the rear end. It's not at all as easy as it looks on YouTube. Taking a crowbar and removing plank by plank is back breaking and then they end up breaking. We decided we would just cut the boards with a circular saw and free the sections for the 2x4 supports. This created pieces ranging in length of 12 inches to 18 inches for most of the boards. We then sorted them into piles of like wood and lengths.

We intended to build our raised garden beds similar to something like this:

and that just did not work at all. It was not strong enough. Maybe it was how we went about building it, but it just did not hold up. In the end, we took it apart and rebuilt it into something a wee bit more sturdy. It took my husband 8 hours to cut pallets and build this one 3 foot by 6 foot raised garden box. At that point, he was over it and done helping me. While he worked on that, I made 4 boxes from larger pieces of pallet wood and they were cute, sturdy, very easy to make, and portable! These boxes were about 4 foot by 4 foot.

Taking pallets to make raised garden boxes did help us out in cost and in the end created decent boxes to get us started. Although, I don't see us ever wanting to get pallets again and tearing them down again to make more. When we're ready to upgrade our boxes or they start falling apart, we will bite the bullet and just buy new boards from the hardware store. I would rather deal with the outrageous cost of wood and create beautiful sturdy raised garden boxes, than have to do what we did.

These are the 4 foot by 4 foot boxes I put together! I love them honestly, I would be happy with a ton of them this size.

The 3 foot by 6 foot box in the center is the one my husband put together. It's not the sturdiest but sturdier than the last. It would of worked better if we had full length boards. Creating raised garden boxes from pallets saved us money but we will use new boards when it comes time to replace & upgrade.

Our boxes range from 3 foot wide to 4 foot wide and I made my paths in similar sizes. Most of the paths are 3 foot wide. We also relocated the blueberry bushes to the new garden space. So far the oldest and largest bush is doing well. I'm praying my two new smaller ones I bought last year, did not go into shock.

Shortly after getting the boxes into place, we had my parents deliver us a truck load of horse compost to us. We've used this in our garden last year mixed with miracle grow soil and it worked really well. I would of loved to have more than just 5 boxes to work with this year. I still wanted to have a small cut flower garden and see if that is something I want to do more of in the future. I knew Aaron was not going to create more boxes for me, after the headache we had making the first few, therefore I decided I would just get another truck load of compost delivered and make a "no-till" garden space. Basically, it would just be a "flower bed". ha ha.

Last year was the first time I ever grew broccoli and it took all season before we could harvest them in August! I'm not sure if it's the new location, a better understanding in how they grow, or if the weather we have this year in Ohio has something to do with it. Just after planting these broccoli a month ago, we were able to harvest our first heads from each plant and I have 6 of them! I actually need to go back out there and cut the new ones off before they go to flower.

I bought 6 starter broccoli plants from a local nursery and eventually bought 4 starter beef stake tomatoes from Walmart. The rest of the plants, I started as seed directly in the garden boxes. This is my first year growing herbs and a "salad" box. In the salad raised garden box, I planted gourmet lettuce, a butter like lettuce, and spinach. The salad box and herb box is mainly a food source for our pet rabbit, but we have also been eating it too. The box is exploding and so over grown now! The spinach is actually starting to get flower blooms... something I did not know spinach does.

Our strawberries this year surprised me! I did not cover them with straw like I should have last year around Thanksgiving. I left them uncovered all winter and I thought for sure I had killed me. To my surprise, they were all OVER my flower bed and front yard! YES! Our strawberries are growing in my front yard flower bed haha. I want to relocate them to the garden this fall, but my husband says I should leave them. I don't mind where they are now, but they do like to take over everything.

We had a ton of strawberries to harvest from them this spring. I believe I collected about 100 strawberries on Monday and again another 100 by the weekend. We had about 4 rounds of harvesting them so far. They have slowed down and aren't producing right now. We should have another round of harvesting late summer, because I have two different varieties planted.

My blueberry bush given to me by parents has nice little plump berries forming, just waiting to ripen. While the daisies are in full bloom out front and showing off. We also have a lovely peachy pink rose bush, tiger lilies I had no clue that grew up front, and soon my mocha moon hibiscuses will be in bloom too. All competing for my attention.

This past week, I got my second truck load of compost delivered. I raked it out to cover the back space of our garden. In this "No Till" garden space, I planted two rows of sunflowers (the shorter versions good for bouquets), two/three rows of zinnias (an absolute must have!), a row of cosmos, and a row of snap dragons. Then I have a large empty space I haven't decided what to do with. I had thought about planting the wild flowers there, but I don't want the "weedy" messy look in there. I think I am going to save the wild flowers to be planted around the tree in the side yard. Mixed in with other plants that will be around the sitting area / chicken coop.

I planted zucchini, cucumbers, and pumpkins on the end of the "No Till" garden space and I'm considering if I want to make one of those beautiful arch trellises in the back. I also threw some tomato seeds in the herb box, since the dang crows stole all of my lavender seeds! The tomato seeds are growing and soon I'll have to prune the herbs back to allow more room for the tomatoes. I think I need to learn how to dry the herbs.

Yesterday, I woke up early and got started right away on laying down a good portion of the landscape fabric. There is still more landscape fabric to be put down, but I only wanted to put down what I thought would be a manageable portion to get covered with rocks at this time. As you can see, I created my paths between the beds and around the "No Till" garden bed. The outside perimeter will remain grass. It's about 4-5 foot wide. I wanted it wide enough to allow us to get our four wheeler around the yard in the winter to plow our driveway. I also didn't want our garden literally on top of our neighbors and ours property line.

I think in the near future, I will be buying landscape edging to go around the outer perimeter of the garden. This way it contains all dirt and rock within the garden space. So far, so good, right? I am loving how it's turning out.

That afternoon, I ran to Home Depot and grabbed four bags of pea pebbles. I wanted smaller rocks, something that would be forgiving when you walk on them barefoot. I hate shoes and absolutely love walking barefoot through a garden. Except, with my recent foot injury, any form of texture hurts the bottom of my feet. Maybe in time it won't hurt so bad. In the first photo, you can see how the pea pebbles look on the paths. Four bags didn't do much, I will have to buy more bags or get a truck delivered. I'm in love! It's all coming together and looking soooo good!

In the second photo, this is taken from under the tree in the side yard. Eventually, I want a hammock swing to hang from this tree and a couple chairs sitting underneath. A place to sit and sip coffee or wine. A place to relax and admire my work, the growing crops, the blooming flowers, and watching the sunsets. I want stepping stone slabs under my feet and landscape around the tree, creating this little cove retreat. From the sitting area will be a passing throw walking path to gather the eggs from the chicken coop. The chicken coop will sit to the left of the tree with a run extending out to the property line. While I work in the garden I can see the chickens running around.

From the road, I want the run to have climbing roses, ivy, or possibly honey suckle vining up lattice on the back side of the chickens run. This way their run is "hidden" from passing by neighbors, but also creates something beautiful for the neighbors to look at. The chicken coop will be a decently sized coop, that's nicely made, and again something that beautifies the neighborhood. Since our garden is in our side yard, somewhere that will be seen by many neighbors, it needs to be pleasing to the eye and beautiful to see. While also, creating a semi-private area for me to enjoy and not feel watched.