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My husband and I moved into our small fixer-upper house in May 2017. It's too long and personal a story to go into why we were so delighted to move into "the little house" in our northern Illinois suburb... suffice to say it is something we both truly longed for. We love living here despite the continuing fixer-upper-ness of this house and we are incredibly grateful to have a house, a yard, and a garden.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the yard was a hot mess when we moved in. The grass was out of control, there was junk strewn everywhere, including a large pile that took us two solid years to get partially hauled away/redistributed.
The house being a fixer-upper, of course there were always about a hundred fix-up projects going at any time, oh wait, there still are! That's why I'm confining this post to Before and Afters of the backyard only.
May 2017... it was tabula rasa! This is a view from the back window through a screen. A whole lot of junk, waist-high grass, and a non-running car the old owner left behind and only picked up after a few days.
One of the first things my husband built for me was these raised beds. I was SO happy! They are cedar and they were a kit from either Home Depot or Walmart from what I recall.
A year later, my husband began to build this by my request.
The view through the screen as of 2019's growing season:
He put in matching cedar beds on the other side once the circle was finished. They are a gardener's dream come true.
We have lots of neighborhood ferals. Being a natural-born Crazy Cat Lady, I set up a feeding, watering, & shelter station for them. It is visited every day and night by cats, raccoons, skunks, opossums, squirrels, bees, and the occasional fox. My Dad built the kitty shelter.
What a fertile year 2019 was. The zucchinis approached Little Shop of Horrors dimensions. I only watered once because of ample rain. I was hauling two garbage bags full of lettuce out of the beds every week for a month and a half.
These thymes started out as two 4x4 inch pots!
Another view of the circle garden. This year (2020) I'm planning on putting in skullcap, catmint, dill, and lavender to fill in the circle quadrants.
Some caterpillar friends enjoying milkweed donated by my master gardener friend Ted in the back area of the garden.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the yard was a hot mess when we moved in. The grass was out of control, there was junk strewn everywhere, including a large pile that took us two solid years to get partially hauled away/redistributed.
The house being a fixer-upper, of course there were always about a hundred fix-up projects going at any time, oh wait, there still are! That's why I'm confining this post to Before and Afters of the backyard only.
May 2017... it was tabula rasa! This is a view from the back window through a screen. A whole lot of junk, waist-high grass, and a non-running car the old owner left behind and only picked up after a few days.
One of the first things my husband built for me was these raised beds. I was SO happy! They are cedar and they were a kit from either Home Depot or Walmart from what I recall.
A year later, my husband began to build this by my request.
The view through the screen as of 2019's growing season:
He put in matching cedar beds on the other side once the circle was finished. They are a gardener's dream come true.
We have lots of neighborhood ferals. Being a natural-born Crazy Cat Lady, I set up a feeding, watering, & shelter station for them. It is visited every day and night by cats, raccoons, skunks, opossums, squirrels, bees, and the occasional fox. My Dad built the kitty shelter.
What a fertile year 2019 was. The zucchinis approached Little Shop of Horrors dimensions. I only watered once because of ample rain. I was hauling two garbage bags full of lettuce out of the beds every week for a month and a half.
These thymes started out as two 4x4 inch pots!
Another view of the circle garden. This year (2020) I'm planning on putting in skullcap, catmint, dill, and lavender to fill in the circle quadrants.
Some caterpillar friends enjoying milkweed donated by my master gardener friend Ted in the back area of the garden.
