Tales of a Tract Home: The Vegetable Garden

One of my earliest memories includes being on my Great Grandmother's farm. My Grandmother and my mother also grew up farming so I have lots of experience planting potatoes, picking blackberries, and eating very green apples. It was a wonderful place to visit, and one of my favorite spots was the barn early in the morning when my uncles would milk the cows. I remember them squirting milk into the plethora of kittens Grandma always had on the farm. It was a beautiful way to spend my summers (and likely where my hay and horse allergies developed).

My husband and I have been married for 20 years now. And for nearly 20 years we've talked about having a vegetable garden. But for nearly 20 years it hasn't quite worked out. For the first few years we lived in a rental that had about a five foot area of grass. Our first home was just getting that "lived in feeling" when my husband lots his job and we had to move across the country to attend school and find a new job. Our home in Savannah, Georgia was also a rental, and we couldn't tear up the grass for a garden. And then finally we moved here to this home.

For a couple of years we simply concentrated on both living in our home and trying to get the main yard in, but we finally decided to conquer the garden in the spring of 2010. We had planned all along to have a garden area, and you can see it here in this photo. We selected an area of our yard that receives as much sun as possible. The back of our yard is on the southwest side of our home and there is nothing to obscure the sunshine from helping our plants to grow for the majority of the day.



First Brett brought in some topsoil from a turkey farm so it was full of fertilizer. This way we didn't have to mix in our own. We had it dumped in front of our house and then wheeled it back to the garden area. Thank goodness for big, strong men who took pity on our rather large dirt pile and came to help us move the dirt one evening.


Then Brett tilled it with his Dad's tiller (remember farming background) to make the dirt nice and soft for planting. Then the kids helped us rake the dirt (Notice James is using a leaf rake for raking and wearing snow boots for heavy duty yard work--typical gardening gear for little boys, right?!).



Then without much planning we took one of our Monday night Family Home Evenings and planted onions, peas, potatoes, zucchini and squash. I should have known then that we needed to think things through a little more (and you'll see why later); but when you're first starting the process you don't quite know what to ask or even about what to wonder. I was surprised to see how much Katelyn and James really enjoyed this part of the process. Having detested my own hours spent weeding and planting, I was thrilled at their willing responses to help.




Then we started watering the garden with an open drip system. You can see from these pictures that because the garden had a slope we didn't get even watering. No amount of moving dirt, shoring up the rows, or any other attempt we made to level the area solved this issue.  Some items got soaked and others went dry. We lost a lot of plants that year including a fruit tree my sweet father-in-law had taken such good care of. It was rough and very disappointing.



Even though we didn't know what we were doing, we did actually have a small harvest that year. There is something so beautiful and tasty about fruit and veggies from your very own garden. The colors alone just delighted me. And talk about savory. We were so happy about our minor success, however minimal, that we knew we wanted to try again.



We actually skipped a garden in 2011 and 2012. We just couldn't figure a way to make things work, and we needed some time off from all that unsuccessful effort to decide how we were going to fix the drainage issue. Gardening is a process and learning how to make your area work for you takes some time, research, money, and lots of trial and error.



At the end of 2012, Brett decided we were going to go with Garden Boxes. We did some research online to see what other people had done, and based on their recommendations we decided to go with pressure treated wood and boxes filled with well-fertilized dirt. Brett built nine 4' X 4' boxes and then leveled them on the original garden dirt. We then covered the surrounding ground with plastic and landscaping rocks. We made sure the space between each box would allow a person with a wheelbarrow to pass through so we could easily move throughout the garden as needed. Brett also designed the boxes tall enough that a person can sit on the edge and easily weed each box.



For watering, Brett drilled a hole through the bottom of each box and added a drip line system from a main line of our sprinkler system to each box. He can easily switch a box's drip line on and off if a certain fruit or vegetable needs a different watering schedule.



We have yet to see how well our little garden will produce this fall, but I can tell you already that weeding takes about five minutes and the watering is pretty much done automatically via our sprinkler system. Those two items alone makes us so happy. The garden box project included wood, nails, dirt, landscaping fabric, and landscaping rocks and of course labor by my handsome husband. The entire project took several hundred dollars. But the initial investment has helped us save hours and hours of work and for two very busy people, that's definitely worth it. We're looking forward to a delicious harvest as we watch our plants grow each week.

Watch for my Living Room Redo coming soon. Here's a little sneak peek at the $50 trunk I shared earlier this week:



Your Chance to Win a Paper Pack Prize or a Workshop Pass!

Today I'm sharing a few fun ways in which you can win some fabulous prizes. First, be sure to check out the Echo Park and Prima Marketing Blog hop HERE and HERE. Echo Park is giving away this fabulous prize package to THREE lucky winners:

While Prima is giving away one EACH of these fabulous collections:


To help promote both companies' products, I created the following projects. It's always fun to work with another company's products, and I love the feminine details of Prima's beautiful flowers and papers combined with the cool Echo Park Paper stickers:



In addition to these giveaways, I get to give away ONE workshop pass to Celine Navarro's fabulous Mini Album class, "Mini Books, Big Style." In this workshop, CĂ©line shares her expertise on this favorite form of scrapbooking, covering topics that range from getting started , to editing photos, to binding, to working with different media and materials! Click HERE for more information on this class.



Workshop Pass GIVEAWAY: To qualify for the drawing for a spot in Celine's workshop, simply leave your 2Peas name and your email address (in code if your prefer) in the comments section of this blog post. All comments are due by Friday, July 5th at midnight MDT to qualify. I'll select one random winner on Saturday, July 5th. The pass will be awarded from 2Peas.


True Scrap Kids Online Event:

And finally, be sure to check out this charming live event you can attend with your kids this summer.Taking place on July 27, True Scrap Kids offers classes aimed at parents and kids in our state-of-the-art webroom. Teachers include former CK Hall-of-Famer CD Muckosky, Stephanie Ackerman, Smitha Katti, Traci Reed, and Kinsey Ehmann.

Click HERE for more information about this fun opportunity!

2Peas GC Winner:

Thanks to all those that visited my blog for the 2Peas June Garden Girl blog hop. The following reader won the $15 Gift Certificate to 2Peas. This prize has been awarded and sent via 2Peas:

 

June Recap: Things You Might Have Missed

I told my husband just the other day that I'm a little heartsick that the summer is a third over because I don't feel we've done anything super fun with the kids in June. My mom was the Queen of Summer Fun, and while we had plenty of chores every day, she also made sure we did things like participate in the local library's summer reading program, go swimming weekly, have slumber parties, go to town parades and carnivals and so much more.

Us? We feel like it's day after day of sitting at home pretty much doing nothing (at least for the kids--the grown ups are working). Of course we've had weekly baseball games including our Tournament which came to an abrupt end last night after playing in the 100 degree heat. We've also had lots of trips back and forth to my daughter's job at a pizza joint. And then there's all the typical errands and activities of summer. But I'm still wishing we had something fun planned for the family. I suppose we're still recovering from our two fabulous trips in April, but I'm itching to go somewhere so we plan on sitting down with our calendar and planning an event or two even if it's a "staycation" here in town.


My Fun Outing: One fun thing I did this month was to attend a Garden Soiree Party for which they had both a keynote speaker and several popular gardeners and DIY/home improvement bloggers as speakers. It was fascinating to hear their approach to making your home "yours," and I learned a lot. They served a delicious dinner, and I won this charming side table which matches my new Living Room color scheme. I can't tell you how happy it made my heart because it had been a rough and emotional week, and I really needed a "pick-me-up" to enlighten my soul a little bit. It was a fun night, but next time I'm dragging some girl friends with me. You can find more of my photo adventures HERE on my Instagram feed.


Flea Market Finds: Also in my journey to update my front room, I scored this fabulous $50 trunk at our local antique mall. I went in with a $50 budget and came out with this charming little blue trunk. (More about my living room to follow in July). I love the hunt for unique and "funky" pieces for my home. I like a touch of "old" or "used" to make the rooms feel a little more special. I'm also a sucker for pretty much any cool trunk, basket, chair, or antique oddity. It's kind of my happy place and where I go when I'm in need of some creative mojo even if I don't buy a single thing.

On the blog: Just in case you missed anything here on my blog this month, here's a round-up of all the items you might want to check out.


Videos: Don't forget that I have LOTS of videos to share each month including my weekly "Memories Made" videos, my "Seeing Double" video from 2Peas, some scrapbooking haul videos and more. This month I covered everything from stamping on a layout, to choosing photos, to using punches to create a unique paper background. Simply search my blog search button by "Memories Made" to find all the projects you might have missed. If you haven't yet had a chance to watch my Craft Room Tour, you can find that HERE on my Youtube channel.


Scrapbook & Cards Today Magazine: I was super excited to be published in this issue of SCT. I've begun filming monthly videos for them as well and I released two new videos on their Youtube channel HERE. You can find more inspiration from SCT HERE on their blog.


Tales of a Tract Home: I started a series on my blog about our adventures in purchasing and owning a tract home including our reasons for buying our home when we did and how we've approached tasks like putting in a yard. You can find these posts by searching for "Tales of a Tract Home" throughout my blog.



10 Mistakes EVERY Crafter Should Make: Afraid to make creative mistakes? Don't be! Often the biggest mistakes lead to true creativity. You can read this article HERE for my take on making mistakes as a crafter.


Beautiful People, Beautiful Things: This month I highlighted Leah Farquharson's fabulous Esty shop HERE on my blog. She was generous enough to give away a camera strap to one lucky winner and that winner is . . .


Watch for some exciting new things in July including new videos, new giveaways, and MORE! I hope you'll join in on the fun. If you prefer receiving these posts via email, be sure to leave your email in the box in my sidebar. I don't use those emails for anything except blog post emails. Or you can use blog readers such as bloglovin' to follow my blog in an RSS feed format. Thank you so much for spending part of your day with me. I truly love the time I spend with my readers. I hope you're enjoying your summer and spending as much time as you can with your loved ones. That's something I want more of this summer as well.

Here's to summer adventures!


Out of the Box #10: 2Peas Scrapbooking Haul Video



This week I had some very specific things in mind when I ordered from 2Peas. First I shopped the  Embellishment sale, which is now over. But you can find additional sale items HERE. Everything from paper to stamps to tools are on sale so be sure to check it out. I also replenished a few things in my supplies like the Silhouette mat and the StazOn black ink pad:



Here's a peek at what I ordered this week:


You can watch the haul video HERE on my Youtube channel or below:



Products I Ordered (click the product photos for additional information or visit my blog HERE to view the list):



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