MBrace it!

Erik and I finished emptying the last half of the side garden plot today, but as you can see the bougainvillea  still needs to be trimmed & shaped up and we need to haul away the rocks and debris to the local dump. He plans to come by next Sunday to throw everything into his truck and haul it away.

We are keeping the bougainvillea as a partial shade and I have later hopes of possibly building some type of decorative fence across the front of the area that begins the "car pad" (see photo 1) with a lovely walkway trellis in the middle that the bougainvillea can grow up onto. It would be a beautiful entrance to my garden area plus a great way to keep my future hens penned into that part of the yard.

After talking to my friend Vanessa (Hi, girl!!!) about the benefits of container gardening, I plan to have a few containers placed around the perimeter to grow in, but I still can't let go of my ache for a beautiful wood raised bed. Especially after finding the MBrace Raised Bed Brackets!

                            

They come in multiple fun designs and they make building a raised bed easy as 1, 2, 3... They're designed to work with 2x4's and there are no tools or screws required, all you need are the brackets, and the lumber ( I'm planning to do redwood ). They can be short beds, or all the way up to 12' long beds. You can get them in stainless steel or powder coated rust ( I love the stainless steel. It'll weather beautifully over time ). All you have to do are drop your 2x4's in and it's ready to go.

I'll admit, when I first saw the price ( $139.99 ) I felt my stomach drop and knew it wouldn't be possible, but after thinking about it a little, basically it's about $35 dollars per brace and as no one else is making anything fun like this yet, I like the idea of being a little bit on the garden decorating cutting edge. The jury's ( Gary ) still out on it, but I'm hoping to persuade him to it. As I doubt I'll be getting that Dream Chair in my last post as a B-Day gift, maybe I can talk him into this.

Obviously the plan is to level out the area where we will put the raised bed, then I want to lay down a sheet of plastic between the bed and existing soil, drop in some gravel for good drainage then throw in the mixture of potting soil and compost to get my soil started. The closet garden hose is 15 or more feet away, and Gary's not keen on having a hose running across the yard for a drip system for the planter. Also, he says I need to be down there tending to it everyday and the drip system would just be an excuse to neglect it. I agree, though do think a drip system could be helpful. Maybe he'll get into that idea at a later date.

As for plants themselves, I originally was going to go with starting from seeds, but yesterday we discovered that the Downtown Upland Farmers Market is back and there was a booth there that sold beautiful, ready to go transplants. After talking with the seller about seeds vs transplants, I definitely want to go the transplant route. It won't be too expensive either. His plants go for about $2 each and I noticed at Lowe's yesterday that they have other transplants for $1. Still, I want to support locally grown farmers, so I hope to buy most my transplants at the Farmers Market.

While at Lowe's I picked up the latest issue of Urban Farmer and saw that the Arboretum in Arcadia will be having a container/raised bed gardening class in May and I'm thinking it'll be really good to go and soak up as much information as I can. Hopefully the class doesn't fill up too quick!

Backyard "Farm"

Right after we moved in the hubby and I looked into finding someone to help us start a small veggie garden. We contacted a local company that looked most interesting to us, but never heard back.
The other day I tried again while we were out and got a hold of the main guy and he invited us over to talk about what we wanted to do. They have a great business going on and I was very excited about having them come in until I saw the price. That pretty much choked the excitement out of me.

When we got home I ended up on Costco.com and found this awesome "greenhouse" by GrowCamp.

It's a couple hundred cheaper than the gardening group was asking and it looks so cool and fun to work with. The Hubs wasn't all into the idea, especially as I haven't been able to keep a house plant alive yet, but I am bound and determined to make this work. The thought of going out into my yard and picking my own veggies and fruits for meals makes me so excited! The money and gas saved not going to and buying stuff from the market will make the work and the waiting totally worth it. The possibility of sharing my harvest with family and friends, and of course, the green aspect of it makes it all the more enticing. The GrowCamp may not be ending up in my backyard anytime soon, but if I can prove myself I may see it back there in the future.

Unfortunately 95% of of our yard is made up of concrete and a large pool, but on the left side of the garage, there is a long wide planter that will be perfect for starting up. 

As you can see, it's a nasty mess right now, filled with junk, weeds, rocks and a big ugly plant. On Saturday my friend/Handyman Erik will be joining me bright and early to clean the area out. The dirt out there is not at all conducive to growing plants, I know that without even trying to dig in it. Once we can move on to the next step of constructing a raised bed. I'm thinking we'll go with this cost friendly version at Home Depot by Scenery Solutions.

One of the great things about these kits are that they're expandable. And from reading all the great reviews, it's easy to put together, you just have to be very thorough about it to prevent the center from bowing out. I can buy new soil and put it in there and won't have to deal with the bad soil whatsoever.

Once I do get this garden up, I'll have to make sure to tell my pool man to clean the filter out in front, as I do not want even a drop of pool chemicals to get into my vegetable beds. Same with other chemicals, I plan to use all organic products for growing my plants.

Directly opposite of the carport pad where the growing area will be, is a mess of our trash cans and I plan to move them around the corner, under the deck (see third photo). Plus I gotta figure out where the rest of the junk is going.

In the meantime, to get myself started I picked up a Buzzy herb growing kit from CVS.

After I've been able to produce some veggies, I'm seriously considering getting a few hens for my own eggs! I picked up a great book on raising chickens ( Homemade Living: Keeping Chickens with Ashley English: All You Need to Know to Care for a Happy, Healthy Flock by Ashley English ) and have been reading up online about breeds, building a chicken coop and run and anything else that catches my eye.

I treasure the idea of hearing 2 or 3 lovely ladies chirping below and having fresh, delicious and much more nutritious eggs. A lot of responsibility comes with keeping chickens, but I am ready for the challenge. 

I am so excited to begin this adventure and I hope you'll enjoy reading about it and possibly getting the inspiration to do the same for your own home. 

Lastly, after all a hard days work of taking care of my garden, I hope to eventually find myself relaxing in one of these, reading a book/magazine. 

It's called "The Dream Chair" and that's exactly what it is! My birthday is coming up... heehee

edit* Looks like we may have some rain coming this weekend. Fingers crossed that it doesn't mess with our garden clean-up plans.

Plus, here's a few photos of the pool just for fun.