The Vintage Fangirl Veggie and Landscaping Garden Tour

So, I’ve hinted here and there about all the yardwork and gardening I have been doing this year… and I promised an update that I am finally able to deliver!

Let me start out with a little background: I have a special talent for killing plants. And neglecting my yard. I’m really, really good at those two things. We’ve lived in this house for 6 and a half years and our yard has been the embarrassment of the neighborhood for pretty much the entire time. But something snapped this year – I just couldn’t take how ugly the yard was for one more summer. Part of it is all the pretty garden things I find on Pinterest. I wanted that kind of pretty in my real life. In fact, I’d say this pin right here was the one that got into my head like a brain parasite and wouldn’t leave me alone until I did something about it:

Source: bhg.com via Wendy on Pinterest

Part of it was also the fact that a couple summers ago, I accidentally planted some pumpkins in my yard. Accidentally, meaning, I tried to plant some, promptly killed them off, and then a month later found a massive pumpkin patch in my burn pile where I had tossed the extra seedlings that I hadn’t planted. But when October came and I had FIVE pumpkins that I had actually somehow not destroyed, I really, really wanted to learn how to do it right.

So, anyway, I know you are getting impatient for my before and after shots. I’ll warn you – they aren’t quite up to par for Better Homes & Gardens. But compared to what my yard used to look like, I’m pretty darn pleased with myself. 🙂

Before and After - Landscaping and Flower Bed in Front of the House

I have to admit I really don’t know how much I spent on this part of the new yard. The granite boulders alone were about $375. I ordered a load of compost/topsoil for another $175. I got the six rose bushes on sale at Menards for $8 each. But most everything else I bought at the beginning of the planting season, pretty much ensuring I paid full price for it. I’ve been working on it since the start of April, so every few weeks I’d buy a few more flowers and plant them. I think if I totaled it all up I’d be mortified, so I’m allowing myself to be blissfully unaware of the final cost. But the plants are 85% shrubs/perennials, so I won’t have this expense again – at least, I’m sure that I won’t kill ALL of these flowers, so if I have to replace some of them, it won’t cost me too much in the future. 😉

As for the vegetable garden, I was more than able to balance out the flower garden cost, because my expenses here were next to nothing. I’d heard that planting beds were the way to go for a veggie garden, and once again BHG was able to deliver a pin on Pinterest to inspire me some more:

Source: bhg.com via Wendy on Pinterest

I first had to clear a space in the yard to get enough sun for a garden. That meant taking down a few trees.

Before and After Planting Beds and Veggie Garden

I was able to build four planting beds out of cedar fence pickets for less than $30. But then I found that my two dogs really, really liked the planting beds. As in, they literally spent most of the day in them. That would be these two trouble makers:

Garden Tour Cast Members: Bear the English Shepherd and Niko the Belgian Tervuren

So a garden fence was in order. I really didn’t want to spend much money on a fence though. But with six freshly fallen trees, I had MORE than enough branches to build a twig fence. I promise a separate post later on how I built that and the twig arbor – but suffice it to say that my beautiful masterpiece of a fence became a project in utter failure. A squirrel enticed Niko to jump over it, and a wayward fetching stick enticed Bear to crawl under it. I was almost in tears… (The fence took DAYS AND DAYS to build!!). Ultimately, though, we just ended up moving our existing electric fence around the garden.

So the fence is a pretty addition that was not necessary in any way, shape or form. I guess I’m glad we built it, though, because it sure is purty, isn’t it? 🙂 By the way, that’s a twig trellis holding up my cucumbers. I should really build some twig tomato cages as well, but I’m a little over the whole twig-building-thing at this point. I’ll probably just buy some wire tomato cages and give my carpal tunnel syndrome a break from screwing together broken branches.

Building aTwig Fence Around the Garden

I had found (another BHG)  tutorial on how to build a twig arbor…

Source: bhg.com via Wendy on Pinterest

But ultimately found out what I think most twig-building people find out – you really kind of need to make it up as you go along. Again, more on that in another post. 😉

Lastly, the people who built the house only had one real planting area that had become a showcase for the tallest weeds on the block. This ‘before’ shot was taken in spring – but come September I was the proudest tall-weed grower in the Midwest!

Before and After Porch Landscaping Flower Bed

I have a tendency to buy and plant flowers that look pretty while I’m looking at them in the store. That meant that most of the flowers I had been planting were all spring-bloomers. I actually did some thinking ahead this time, and forced myself out of my instant-gratification-gardener syndrome. Growing in this bed are mostly gladioli, which will bloom in the late summer/early fall.

I had really wanted to wait to post this until the yard was perfect… until I finally faced the fact that it will never, ever be perfect. So look for a few more posts as the garden starts providing our produce for the summer and like I said earlier, I promise a post on how to build the twig fence and arbor. And maybe at that point I can stage my photos a little better so that you don’t have to look at a bottle of charcoal lighter fluid sitting on my porch. 😉

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