2020 Garden

This is more of a where we started post than anything. I can look back in a few years and see how much we've accomplished, hopefully! 

We moved from a zone 9 to a zone 6. That is a huge difference and I honestly feel like a completely new gardener. We also have very sandy soil. The soil is a dream to work and pull weeds but lacks nutrients our plants need. It also doesn't hold water and seeds float away.  It's not really soil - it's just dirt (well ... sand).

Our current garden consists of 7 raised beds along the fence in our backyard in town.  Our neighbors told us that they were filled with the dirt from our yard ... maybe that is why we have so many holes (kidding - kind of).  

We moved in the middle of summer and missed the window to plant a full garden. We did plant 2 zucchini plants mid July which gave us several zucchini before they met Jack Frost, several peas and green beans which didn't grow very tall but gave us a few peas and beans. Kale is still growing strong, and we have a broccoli and a brussel sprout plant that are slowly growing - not sure we'll get a harvest from either of those. Everything was planted from seed directly in the beds. 

I found bagged manure and compost on clearance at Walmart and got as much as I could fit in the basket (they were 25 cents)!  Then I convinced my hubby to go back and get another 10 bags.  We've added a bag of manure and 2 bags of compost to each bed. That was 2-3 inches on the top before we mixed it in.

We have mostly put the garden beds to bed for the winter by covering each bed with leaves we chopped up with the lawn mower. At our last house we did this with the garden boxes and it cut down so much on the weeds. Hopefully it will be the same here while also adding organic matter our soil desperately needs. 

There are 20 cloves of garlic planted in one bed, it is supposed to grow really well over the winter here.

That's it for our 2020 garden - not much but it's a start! 

Let there be storage!

We have a great garage - wider than the door on both sides which makes it perfect for built in storage. 

I didn't take before pictures, but all my teaching stuff was stacked in the corner - it was a mess! 

We moved the boxes, did a quick coat of paint and started building. 

The spot we build these shelves is between the 2 garages that are separated by a wall. The spot is just over 8 feet, so one 8 foot section fits just perfect here. 

It was a pretty quick build, probably could have gotten it done in a day even with 3 kids to take care of. But, we didn't go buy lumber until the afternoon. The most time consuming part was drilling pocket holes with the kreg jig for the support pieces.  It was a pain to get everything level, but that's a garage for you.  

We used this plan from Ana White.  Some small adjustments were to use 2x3s for the support pieces (they are cheaper) and we rotated the front boards to have less wasted space.  We added a shelf to the bottom and used a 2x6 for the center support.  We also made our unit a little taller to accommodate another shelf.   

All of my teaching stuff fits with lots of room to spare!  I didn't take a picture with all the boxes put away.  I'm taking a year off from teaching so no classroom to put all my stuff.  I have SO MANY books!  I feel like a picture would make is obvious that I have too much teaching stuff!

I even have room to put the kids clothes up on top that don't currently fit them.  

Eventually we will outfit our whole garage, but lumber prices are high and the budget is low.  

So much storage!!