Vegetable Garden : End of Season

I don't think it's technically the end of the gardening season, but it's the end of ours. I'm not sure what happened, but our garden basically just died. I probably didn't water it enough, or watered it too much, or didn't weed enough, or should have fertilized it, etc. See where we left off here.

Every day when I got off work, the girls and I would head outside. We would water the plants, check to see what was growing in, and walk around the yard a little bit. It was a nice little routine and I loved setting aside a handful of minutes to get some fresh air and walks around our yard.

It seemed to be flourishing and we were getting a lot of flowers and a couple of beans... and then nothing. One zucchini kind of started to show up and then nothing. We got a decent amount of cucumbers, but the plant started to die along with everything else.

We had a salad-sized harvest at some point this summer and it was so fun to eat a meal full of plants that we grew ourselves. I've given up for this season, but plan to regroup and try again next year with a little bit more planning. It was fun while it lasted, and I loved the quiet time and peace that this little garden brought me this summer.

See more of our garden updates and pictures at #CoopstromsGarden

Vegetable Garden : Progress

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One of the things I was looking forward to when we moved into our own house was starting a vegetable garden.  I love vegetables and I'm cheap so I would love getting tons of veggies for very little cost.  I did as much reading as I could, lots of Pinning, and a little bit of planning.

We made this raised bed out of scrap pieces of wood I had. Cora and I tried just nailing them together, but that was not the best way to construct it. I bought some corner brace things and Ben and I put this together one evening.

I threw in some cardboard boxes from our move and moved dirt from the existing raised beds.  Cora and I picked up a bunch of seeds at Lowes and worked on germinating the seeds in damp paper towel and ziploc baggies.  I was getting a little discouraged because it was taking a while, but a couple days later I looked and little roots were sprouting in everything but the beans.

I planted the seeds, watered, and hoped for the best.  A couple days later things started to pop up and we were way too excited for it. I was still a little worried about the beans because I hadn't seen any activity yet, but one day they just started popping up.  By the end of that day, almost all of the bean seeds had popped up and were growing fairly quickly.

Using some bamboo sticks and netting, I made these little bean teepees and whatever that other thing is called for the plants to grow up on. I'm really just winging it with a lot of things regarding this garden, so time will tell if these methods worked.

I've only had to do a little bit of weeding and watering it at least once a day, but the plants seem to be doing pretty good. I am far from being a knowledgeable gardener, but this little project has been so fun for me and Cora to work on.  I can't wait until the plants start getting veggies and we can eat straight from the garden.

See more of our garden updates and pictures at #CoopstromsGarden

House Exterior : Progress

I feel like I've put tons of work out here, but making very little visible progress at this point.  I don't have too much to share, but I wanted to share some of my own pictures and plans.

In the backyard, I moved the stones from this circular bed. We found that when we were playing outside it was just in our way and we'd walk right through it, so I'm slowly working on getting rid of that.  I'm transplanting a bunch of the hastas to the front garden and trying to even out the area.  I'm hoping some of the spreading 'weeds' we have will cover up this area without too much work from me, but we'll see how that goes.  I still need to fill in some of the divots so there aren't a bunch of random holes in the yard.

I've slowly been working on clearing out behind the garage.  There is a ton of overgrown weeds, trees, leaves, and overall junk.  It's taking so much time, but progress is progress.  I also started tearing apart the raised bed.  The wood was rotting, so I reused some of that soil for my veggie garden and I'll reuse the irrigation system on another raised bed when I get that fully taken out. I'm planning on putting some french doors in the back of the garage and turn it into a little studio, or 'she shed' as they call it these days.  I'll share more of those plans when we're closer to implementing them

I've also slowly been working on the front garden.  I cleared out a bunch of dandelions and moved some of the hastas up there.  My sister bought me some tulip bulbs from the zoo and we planted those up in the front too.  Not much to look at yet, but we're in it for the long haul.  

Other than that, not much has changed with the house exterior.  We have big plans, but it's going to take quite a while (and lots of money) to get to them all.  We have the following low cost things on our to-do list for this year (hopefully):

+ remove honeysuckles in front garden/yard

+ remove screened in porch

+ remove awnings

+ train some plants up the fence (started with some clematis so far... not super successful)

+ clean up the patio so we can enjoy some Friday night cookouts

+ save up for some long term plans like painting the house, new roof, etc