If you’ve been following along with me on this blog journey so far, you know by now that by purchasing my house, I was also signing up for a yard that was a far cry from the coveted green grass, white picket fence, American dream scenario. I had hundreds of thousands of river rocks (which god only knows what was buried beneath), a rather unsightly green plastic and metal monstrosity that was supposedly a “fence”, and a jungle of overgrown weeds. There was a lot I had a lot to learn about gardening. I googled “gardening for beginners” trying to learn everything I could. Eventually I had to get off the internet and get to work Here is what I learned….
Gardening for Beginners
If you have a similar disaster on your hands, here’s my advice….
- Take a deep breath, you’ve got this. Remember “Rome wasn’t built in a day” (so my dad has told me about a million times)
- Get to dreaming, what do you want the yard to look like? Not sure? Pinterest has got your back!
- Pick one section or major project to tackle and get to work!
Get Your Rear Into Gear!
Following my own advice I chose to start with the back corner of my yard wanting to take advantage of the April weather in Portland and turn it into a vegetable garden. Who doesn’t love fresh veggies???
And so commenced my nightly post work manual labor, which consisted of clearing and smoothing a patch of weed infested dirt. It wasn’t actually as long and arduous of a task as you may imagine, it was actually quite therapeutic. Within a few days I had smoothed the dirt and plucked every last weed out of that little 12 x 12 space.
Pro Tip: Home Depot is More Scared of You Than You Are of It
Just like that I was ready to make my way to Home Depot…I was overwhelmed and intimidated just to set foot in the place. Up until that day, like most midwest suburban bred gals (also known as basic b*@$%!$), Target was more within my wheelhouse.
I’m not sure I had ever set foot into a home improvement store on my own prior then. I felt so out of place as if everyone was glaring at me like I was Elle Woods attending her first day at law school. Despite my anxiety, I put on my big girl pants and walked into the store like I owned the place. I filled my cart with everything I could possibly need so I would NEVER have to go through that form of personal torture again. Spoiler alert…. I’ve been back. In fact, I’ve been back so many times I feel like I should own part of my local store.
Getting to Work
When I finally returned home with what I’m pretty sure was alllll the things I loaded all of my supplies into my trusty wheelbarrow and got ready to dig into my project. *** Protip, if you plan to do a lot of gardening, get a wheelbarrow. It is endlessly useful and cuts down on your back and forth from your car***. To start I laid down a weed block. You can get either a plastic or fabric weed block, both of which I have tried. I don’t find that either works any better than the other, just don’t skip this step. Even with the weed block a few of the most strong-willed weeds will muscle their way through.
With the weed block in place the next step to my DIY garden was to up my game and build some planter boxes. These were the first thing I have ever built… well, unless you count shop class in 8th grade. The only difference between 8th grade and now is that in 8th grade I had adult supervision, this time I was the responsible adult (ha!) My planter boxes for beginners are by no means the most structurally sound or most professional thing out there but it is kind of hard to mess up rectangles. A year later they are still going strong (***brushes off shoulder*** It ain’t no big thing). If you have a drill (and in my opinion EVERYONE should own a drill) and the desire to try to keep plants alive for the summer, this could be the perfect starter project for you.
DIY Planter Box
Here is how to make two planter boxes just like mine.
- You will need: 3 – 1x8x8 pieces of pine or similar wood, (I used pine because it was the most cost effective) and some wood screws (I used random ones I found in my yard, I told you there was buried treasure within all of that river rock!)
- Cut into: 4 – 4 foot pieces and 4 – 2 foot pieces.
- Grab a diy partner (if you don’t have one you can still do this! It’s just going to take a little more patients) and have them hold the pieces as you drill them together. It helps if your pre drill holes where you are going to screw things together. This is called a pilot hole and then screw in the screws.
If you didn’t already know, Home Depot will cut your wood for you to the dimensions that you need. Just wheel your cart full of wood to the back of the store and then seek out a nice old man in an orange apron (probably called Ed or Larry) and they will be more than happy to help.
One final step that you may (or may not) want to take is the addition of metal brackets to make your planters a bit sturdier. I didn’t do this initially however, after a year of wear and tear, I noticed that my planters were starting to bow a little bit. I just tightened the screw, and added some cheap metal brackets and we were back in business.
Just Add Mulch
To top it all off I covered all of the weed block in mulch. Not only does mulch act as another barrier against weeds but it also adds to the aesthetics of your garden. What girl doesn’t like pretty things in her life?
And there you have it. The first iteration of my garden. Not bad for a first time home owner if I do say so myself. At the time, I was still wrestling with… am I allowed to do this? Can I dig here? Can I put a hole in that? Is this too much to spend? But now I’m pretty much past that and have added onto the garden since. More to come on that later!
Until next time- Elizabeth
*Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.
