To Do List is Shrinking

My office is just inside the sliding glass doors off our deck. It used to be the dining room, but whoever built this house must've thought nobody used dining rooms anymore. It was so small that when our family was at the table (every night for dinner) people were trapped until the first person was done. LOL So, we put the table in our family room (hearth room?) and made this into my office. The point being, I work from home and from my desk, I see the patio all day long. The patio is our junk drawer. We have several projects that are being worked on plus stuff being stored and it just becomes a mess. It's depressing to look at a junk heap everyday. This was near the top of the list to be tackled this week. I'm happy to report, the shed got cleaned out & painted, and became my potting shed. So, all the gardening equip is now in the shed! The chicken brooder is completed and awaiting meat birds. The horrid shrubs got pulled out and in their place will be the raspberry bushes. The smoker found a new home. All the other projects got relocated so now we can use our patio for meals and relaxation ~ as it was meant to be!

I've been collecting materials to make more square foot gardens. I like the look of the concrete block beds. You can grow flowers or herbs in the blocks and veggies in the bed. We got these free off Craigslist. Lined with cardboard to kill the grass, filled with top soil mixed with compost and leaves. I tucked in the rest of our seed potatoes and onions around the perimeter. I plan to grow tomatoes inside it and basil in the blocks. You just can't have too much basil!

Here are 4 more new SFG beds. One for green beans, one for carrots (the deeper one in front), one for spinach/lettuce/leeks and the 4th one for cabbace and broccoli. We have enough lumber to make 3 more beds. If we measured correctly, this side of our yard can hold 15 raised beds total.

Also found on CL - 3 water barrels! They appear to be soap barrels, maybe from a carwash? The concrete pad was here already. We found a shed on CL and took it apart, moved it home and put it back up again. It wasn't as big as the concrete pad, so there's about 4' of concrete on the backside of the shed. That's where Jerry is going to install the rain barrels - one for intake, 2 for overflow. These bushes have to go to. We've been slowly removing them and replacing with edible shrubs.

Oh, and can't forget the curb find. A perfectly good double sink with legs that Jerry is going to rig up to be our outdoor sink using rain barrel water. The drain will empty into the garden.

We got the yard picked up and the first mowing of the year done. It's always so nice to have the brown gone and green grass appear. Tonight, we are expecting severe weather - 1" hail, thunder, lightening and wind. Oh the wind! It's been gusting so much it's hard to get anything done outside. Tornadoes are also a possibility - so I'm off to prep our tornado kit. I learned from a good friend who survived her house being blown apart (she was under it at the time) to ALWAYS make sure to have tornado preps in place. Ah, spring in Kansas. Gotta love it.