Budget Gardening in Small Spaces

I have a confession to make

It's one of my biggest passions yet I know nothing about gardening.

Yea I said it, I know nothing. 

But every year, 

I have a small garden 

and somehow

I manage to not kill it most of it. 

And bless my husband as he sits on the side 

and shakes his head supports me and my crazy adventures

And sometimes they are crazy.

Two years ago when we first moved into our house

part of the reason why I fell in love with our house

is the cute small yard that is half wood patio and the other half dirt.

Dirt, however, was not conducive to a 1.5 year old

and I had big plans to turn it into a cute garden 

and make all that dirt into beautiful lush grass.

And I did...

Kinda (visit the journey here, and here, and here)

The only problem was

grass seed is kinda weak and hard to grow. 

So it grew for some weeks and even months

but eventually

it died out.

And I was left with a big dirt patch again.

And I was unmotivated to do anything about it.

Other than plant a huge garden last year

but a garden in a patch of dirt where your dog runs around?

Not so appealing to me.

Until recently.

One of my stipulations for not moving

was that we had to figure something out for our yard

Whether it was a grass or stepping stones

Something had to be done so that it was semi-useable for the kids, me and the dog.

So M and I put our heads together and tried to figure something out

It needed to have some grass, 

but couldn't be ALL grass because of the trees/roots behind our house

I needed some stones to garden on since I've transplanted most my garden into containers

And there was no way in hell we were doing grass seed again. This time would be sod.

So finally we figure something out and it became a (for the most part) one day, less than $300 project

First off, we woke up late and started at 1P. Yikes. But we got our booties to Home Depot and picked up 14 rolls of sod, 27 bricks, weed tarp, lawn edging, manure, lawn prep and rented a rototiller. I also threw in two tomato plants because, well, we needed new ones:

This is the before picture:

As you can see the plants were everywhere and the dirt was...well, dirt.

The yard cleared and rototilled, twice.

Then we started the edging and weed tarp. Seriously, by this point, we were over halfway done and it hadn't even taken us three hours yet. I should also note at this point that everything was meticulously calculated by my husband before we started the project. He knew the exact square footage of the dirt area we were working on. We had gone to Home Depot the weekend before and took measurements of everything we needed, and he planned it all out so we knew the exact price and look of everything before we started. If you decide to do something similar to this, I definitely suggest his course of action.

ps - see my little gardener? She was thrilled to be helping plant and dig.

And then we laid 27 stepping stones and the sod. In order to keep it conducive to our new budget, we decided to do half the stepping stones now and half next month.

Doesn't it look pretty though?

And so far? The supplies this weekend were $130 and the rototiller was $40 to rent. And now we have about $50-$75 worth of stones to pick up next month!

Less than $300 altogether.

Some have asked us why we didn't do a sprinkler/irrigation system and why we didn't go grass throughout. And we chose not to have an irrigation system because you see that white brick fence? Our yard has no good irrigation. And before we evened everything out...the water would pool at the base of the house. No bueno.

So we thought we'd have better luck with watering and monitoring the grass ourselves.

And the best part is that if the sod doesn't take (which we think it will), we can replace those parts with more stepping stones.

But for now? Our garden!

Project #1: DONE!!

to new adventures...

I posted earlier this week how life has been a roller coaster

and let's face it,

when hasn't it been?!

But the blessing of the roller coaster has been the ability realign our goals,

take a look at our family budget

 and refocus on what we want.

But short-term and long-term.

And as stressful as it has been, 

at the same time it has been such a strengthening experience for both M and I and our marriage.

So staying in our house has been a creative challenge. 

First, we wanted to crack down on saving up $$ 

since such a huge chunk is coming out of our savings.

Have you ever noticed how many pitstops you take during the week for small unnecessary things?

Like lunch? Or coffee? Or just for one or two things at the store?

I didn't realize HOW much we were OVERspending.

And second, we needed to get creative in reorganizing and purging.

And three trips to Goodwill later...

we're still working on purging.

It's amazing how much yarn crap accumulates quickly.

So here's to new adventures, both in life and on the blog.

I'm excited to have an outlet to write again.

I'm excited for these changes.

I'm excited.

Roller Coaster

Life has been a roller coaster lately. 

Everything seemed to be going great.

We found out we were expecting baby #2 on Halloween.

We planned to move to a slightly bigger place around the corner.

We found out baby #2 was a BOY.

Everything was on a roll.

And then

BOOM.

Life happened.

Turns out that last year

when my husband was blessed with his new job

they were in the midst of changing his department over to another section of the company

and in the flurry of the change

his Federal taxes weren't withheld for the entire year when he transferred to the new section.

Ouch.

So come tax season

we found out we were owing thousands of dollars to the IRS

and soon.

Being the planners that we are M is

we disappointingly cancelled our move

rearranged our plans and priorities

and reshifted our focus.

We realized our 2 bedroom place was perfect for our growing family.

Our kids cosleep anyways. Why did we need the extra space at this time?

We figured yea the storage and space is limited in our place

but that's what being creative is all about.

We have to get creative.

And the garden I wanted?

Nothing has held me back from getting the garden I wanted in the past.

So why would moving change that in any way?

We want to live on the smaller rent so we can afford the great things for our kids.

We want to build memories and dreams

not have to ration everything just to make it every month.

Someone recently pointed out to us,

"What do you remember most about your childhood? 

Do you remember the house? Yes. But did it matter when you lived in the smaller house

or the bigger house? No. You remember the interactions.

The things and memories you created as a family. Focus on providing what they NEED. Not what you WANT. Foster your relationships. Splurge on fun outings and vacations. Don't feel like you need to keep up with the Joneses and put that pressure on you, your marriage and your family. 

To a child, they only need and want to be love and it doesn't require much for that. "

So life and it's upcoming plans changed a bit this past week.

Super stressful and so disappointing

but at the same time

so, so liberating and reassuring.

It makes no sense to dwell in the upsets

when there are so many blessing around us right now.

This is life.

Time to live it.