Needopedia

I am loving my little side projects.

First, I took the little strip outside our bedroom window that has always just been the junkyard; project scraps, bulking items, things to go to the dump, weeds, wood, and debris piles. It’s also where all the (large amount) of driveway debris gets blown. I wanted to make a raised bed so the debris could still be blown this way and it not get into the garden. Shade plants were also necessary. Even if the RV wasn’t parked right there, the amount of sun in the peak of summer can only be counted in minutes. 

I mentally played with many designs and finally decided on this teardrop to somewhat bring together an asymmetrical area. This meant the garden bricks needed to be cut in front to make it work, but that’s why we have a chop saw and more diamond blades than wood ones. I filled it with good dirt, kept my eye out for clearance shade plants, finally found the perfect spot for my dragon birdbath, caved and bought the rest of the flora at Flower World and put it all together.

To none of my 3 follower’s surprise, it is actually winter when I write this and all the plants are winter dead (which means actually alive) and this little pocket shade garden has flourished for the last 5 months. The dragon, too.

My other project that has been on my list for 19 of the 20 years we’ve lived here is to improve the under-the-deck cover. The deck is still sturdy but the yucky rigid plastic sheets held up by rusty screws and leftover wood siding worked as well as a holey umbrella to keep our garden equipment sheltered and dry.

My idea was to finally remove the plastic and replace it with corrugated roofing angled toward a gutter to flow out to an old rain barrel. It didn’t have to win pretty points; anything looked better than the previous system and couldn’t work worse.

My kids were not particularly useful on a project that often needed another set of hands. Kyla would always help out if she was home, but she has the busiest schedule of the kids. Wes and Kyla did help me cut the aluminum and held it in place–even Piper eventually got roped into a little bit of assistance. But mostly I got creative with string and bungee cords and ladders. My swearing was a little less creative but still effective.

It took a few weeks of making lots of mistakes and miscalculations, but I built something that was an improvement in every way over the old way. Let’s see if it also lasts for 50 years!

Much less of a junkyard now!