Our 6 Month Garden Transformation
Our 6 Month Garden Transformation
From unkept lawn to garden oasis
Why?
Over the past two years (2020 - 2022), we have seen a lot of things change in the world. To be honest, it’s a bit of a wake-up call. In late 2019 I realized very quickly that the only two things that matter above all else are your family and your food.
Two things that sustain life and make it worth living.
Since then I have been actively putting our family in a position to be more self-reliant and let me tell you, it’s both harder and more fun than I thought.
Harder because there is a lot to know about growing plants for food. A LOT.
More fun because I love learning, getting dirty, sweaty, and working with my hands.
The WHY is because I want to learn how to produce my own food from seed to be less dependent on the system as food prices increase.
Simple right?
I don’t know what I’m doing
This was probably the best part. After a few years of dabbling with the idea of off-grid empire, I decided to take action and look for a property in late 2019.
I could see the writing on the wall and housing was about to get crazy as people quickly moved away from cities. I found a house that needed work ( a shit ton of work as it turns out) and it sat on a handful of acres with tons of woods on a dead-end street with awesome neighbors.
The only problem was I had to spend the first year flipping the house (cleaning, painting, HVAC replacement, replacing ALL the carpet with hardwood, tearing out part of the deck, building a fence, and much more) to get ready for our wedding that we decided to have in our backyard (it was dope).
Then we could build an instagram worthy garden, right?
2021 Garden time…Almost…
Many of our big projects labored on through 2021 and meanwhile, my wife and I were both working at the same startup during this time period. Gardening seemed like a dream. Wishful thinking. Impossible.
But we would talk about it every day, even though it felt as though it was like trying to grab sand that was slowly sifting through our fingers.
In late 2021, we decided to commit to these life changes:
Start a family of our own
Change careers to one offering more money and remote only
FINALLY build our dream garden
Resources for the project
Deciding and planning the garden was a blast. Reading gardening books, watching youtube videos together, and reading gardening blogs was all we did during downtime.
But the price of everything shot up that year. Wood doubled along with many other items. We wanted to stick to a budget and do everything ourselves.
We search facebook marketplace to find cheaper wood for garden boxes
I used free pallets for many parts of the greenhouse and tables/ shelves
I found a local sawmill that provided wood for a reasonable price
I bought cheap weed fabric (bit me in the ass)
I found free mulch from local tree services
The Cost…rough estimate
I thought I would do a better job of tracking this but a lot was cash and negotiating on the spot. I probably spent around $1,500-$2,000 all said and done between buying dirt, wood, screws, fencing, and seeds.
Tools that made this way easier
Impact driver for garden boxes.
This made screwing 2X8s together easy and fast vs a regular drill
Battery Powered Nail gun to frame the greenhouse and put up supports for panels
power when you need it, beats hammer and nail 100% of the time
What I Would Do Differently
I learned a lot this year, and here are a few things I would change if I could:
Plant LESS Variety. Focus on a fewer amount of fruits and vegetables that I really like.
Use higher quality weed fabric and use more of it
Put Rocks in between garden beds instead of mulch. Mulch breaks down and also holds bugs.