Lane has worked so hard on it and it's really a wonderful place! We had tried to decide which part of our yard would be best for a garden area and the far corner behind the pool was where we had the most sun, so we chose there and I'm really glad we did, it's kind of private and aways from the house so it's like my own little world. When we decided the far corner, we went out to look at it and started digging around and realized there was some concrete blocks or something there under the grass, it was so overgrown with grass we didn't really know what was there.
I started digging at it one day while Lane was at work and when he got home I was in trouble! He doesn't like for me to do too much manual work, so he took it over and sure enough we had a nice size patio under all of the grass! Once we realized that we had a patio under the grass we decided how to place our raised bed garden, we had thought about 2 of them, but one was plenty enough and we thought if we liked it this year we could add another one next year, Lord willing. So then Lane really kicked it into gear and built the frame for the vegetable garden areas, and I put some cement blocks up to hold the dirt for the flower bed in place. Lane hauled dirt, dirt and more dirt! We were really blessed by the boss he worked with at the time, he was given top soil and sand and a lot of mulch just for the hauling. We knew we had to put up a fence to keep the dogs out so we chose a dark green wire fence that would blend in and not be so distracting.
The things for the garden just seemed to come together, there are some metal wheels from my dad's farm that my sister was wanting to get rid of, so we took them and put them up on the privacy fence for a little country charm. They were getting rid of some golf cart seats at work so we used them for a little bench where I can sit while I work on the garden. We've had the tomato cages for years and years and while we were living in Tulsa we had bought an old gate at a garage sale and it worked perfect for our garden! (It had just been laying in the garage while we moved around,( I'm sure Lane wondered what we needed an old rusty gate for but he never complained, he just loaded it up at the garage sale and hauled it with us for a long time!)
Now we have a garden where God has told me we have an open heaven~ well, He told me to remember that for our whole yard is an open heaven and I know we have open heavens everywhere we claim them, but I really enjoy it in the garden!
I took the pictures starting while I was sitting in one of the two metal chairs we keep on the patio. (Lane was able to get them painted at work too! They had originally been rusty old black chairs, but now they're spiffy shiny red ones!) I took pictures to my left, starting with a big pot our neighbor gave us from her yard because she's moving and I planted Yellow Crook Neck Squash in it, then down and kind of behind it I planted a tomato plant that was left over from our planting, along with the tomato plant is another orphan Squash plant that was left over~ that garden bed was supposed to be for Okra and we did plant about 15 plants or so in it but we had a bunch of volunteer sunflowers come up too, I let some of them grow but I'm trying to keep their leaves trimmed back so they don't overshadow the Okra too much. At the end of the Okra bed are a couple of Potato plants and then a Hollyhock that we transplanted from the farm and and an Iris on the outside of the bed.
From there is the vegetable raised bed, we planted a lot in it! It's about 4 by 8 and we put onions, turnips, beets, carrots, radishes and spinach in it for the cool season, now I've added some peas, beans, cucumbers, zucchini squash and jalapeno peppers. We have some herb plants tucked here and there in other parts of the yard too~ some lemon thyme, basil, rosemary, pineapple sage, dill, chives and mint. It has been so fun! I'm like a kid in a candy store to be able to plant and grow so many things!
Carol, my sister gave us a lot of Iris starts, they sold their farm and have moved to town now, so she was digging up a lot of her flowers for starts at her new house and shared with us. After we planted the Iris' we saw some at Lowes and saw the price was $10 a bulb! We came home and counted up that we had planted a value of over $200 dollars of Iris' that Carol had given us! We've transplanted Hollyhocks and Peonies from the farm too. and our neighbor that is moving gave us starts from her plants too, We're creating an oasis! Thank You Lord!
This has turned out to be pretty long, but it seems like our garden has had God's hand in it all along, even from the gate in Tulsa, so I wanted to do it justice! and Lane has put a lot of labor in on it too! Our dog, KC, snuck into a couple and the one picture from the start has Lexi, Luke's Dog and KC with Lane.
Hope you enjoy the tour and that it's not too long!
This is how it looked when Lane first dug out our patio, that was hidden under grass.
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These are volunteer Sunflowers that came up, they're trying to take over the area for the Okra!
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(We've since added mulch to all of the walking area around
the raised bed and the tomato cages to fight the grass back!)
One of the wagon wheels from my dad's farm.
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The flower bed down one side of the patio.
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Our Patio and Garden from an outside view.
It's still a work in progress, but I love our little garden area!
Thank You Lord for this blessing!
