With LA’s winter season quickly coming to a close, Alex and I are left saying goodbye to the rainy season, and hello again to the sunshine! Although the rain has been a welcome sight and has, in turn, made the area feel so lush and green lately, we’re ready to spend some more time in our backyard again!
Last year around this time, we spent a good many of our weekends at our favorite place — The Home Depot of course! — gathering materials to turn our backyard into a space where we could hang with the neighbors. We’re one of the very few houses in the neighborhood with an actual backyard AND with neighbors that feel more like family, so it only felt right to transform our backyard oasis into something that we would all get a lot of use and joy out of 🙂
Alex and the boys set out and built this really awesome L-shaped bench + table. Although not finished in these pictures, it has since then been reinforced, weather-proofed, and stained! It looks really great, in my opinion 😉 I added a simple outdoor rug to tie the space together, and Alex received one of those awesome retractable umbrellas for his birthday last summer, which has really helped out on those super sunny afternoons. We also randomly acquired one of those heating units that runs on propane that had been left on the side of the road, and with a little TLC, Alex got it working like new! The space is pretty much perfect. Sometimes, if there’s a big sporting event going on, we’ll hook up the TV outside and everyone will gather around to watch while we cookout. Those are my favorite kind of evenings around here 🙂 Currently we’re trying to figure out a way to hang some twinkle lights …
The backyard just didn’t feel complete without some sort of garden though! I had voiced this concern to Alex, and the very next day he showed me some plans he had found on Home Depot’s website on how to construct a garden box … no power tools needed!
What you’ll need:
4 – 8 Planter Wall Blocks like these for your corners. We used 8 and stacked them two at a time for each corner to make our garden bed a little deeper.
2×4’s – the wood of your choice, cut to your desired length. We used 9 (two for each side and then three pieces to create a finished top look). If we didn’t have the back wall, we would have needed three more.
Outdoor wood stain. You don’t need a whole lot!
A garden box liner (to protect your veggies from the stain on the wood). It’s also a good idea to put down cardboard over the grass that you’ll be covering with your soil.
What To Do:
Pick out your blocks and wood at Home Depot and make sure that they slide into each other easily. Get your wood cut while at Home Depot to your desired length! I think your first two cuts are free and then its 50 cents per cut after that, if I’m remembering correctly! Either way, it’s not too expensive.
Stain your wood planks and let them dry. If you live in a harsher climate, you’ll really need to invest in some good wood & stain. But if you live in a generally dry and sunny state like we do, you don’t need to splurge on the best stuff. 😉
Place your blocks where you’d like your garden to sit, slide in your wood, and wah la! There’s your box! Put your cardboard on the grass, and lay in your liner before adding your soil. If you want to give your box a more finished look like we did, place additional wood over the edges and nail or drill into place!
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It’s that easy! And you don’t even need any power tools to do it! We only had a mildly-successful garden last year, but I think it’s because I planted a little bit too much! I have been happily composting my little garden for the last month in a half, in preparation for a more successful growing season this year! What are you guys planting in your gardens? Do you have any tips or tricks for someone with a brown-thumb like me!? I’d love to hear them!
LAUREN LIVES 