Deck Progress: What We Planted

The deck is pretty much done, yay!  Jeff is so excited.  We just need to put sand in the sandbox and build a cover for it.  Last week, Jeff planted some yummy plants in the deck planters.  Here is the run down:

And Jeff put the herbs he bought in this fun little table he built a while back.

Here is the {almost} finished deck

Planting crops

Last night we made a little family trip to Home Depot to pick up dirt and a few crops for our new raised garden planters.  The planters are so big that we ended up buying 20 bags of garden soil.  Before he filled them up, Jeff built a false bottom in the platers that was about 10 inches off the ground so that it would take less dirt to fill them.  He then lined the sides and bottom with 6mm all purpose plastic to protect the wood.

Here's 15 of the 20 bags.  Jeff had bought 5 earlier to see how much he would need.  I totally doubted that he could fit 15 bags on that cart.  Jeff is surprised that I still ever doubt him.

Here are the crops we got: carrot seeds, yellow bell pepper, zuchini squash, crockneck squash, watermelon, and some herbs: mint, cilantro, adn basil.  The watermelon and herbs arent actually going into these planters.  We have other plans for them that I'll share later.  We were at Lowes the other day and felt they had more variety, so we are going to check out their supply later and possible get some more veggies.

Wesley was a great helper.

Here are the planters all filled up with dirt.  See the plastic peeking through on the sides?

By the time Jeff finshed it was dark outside, so I will show pictures of the final reveal next week when we have the entire deck area completed.

Any suggestions on plants to get?  We are no experts in gardening so any tips you have for us would be great!

Deck Update: Planter, Stain, and Stairs

Jeff is almost done with the deck! This weekend he finished the new planters, stained the deck, and built stairs.  The only thing left is to create a sandbox on the other end of the deck and he's donezo!

Here's a few pictures of the planter.

it's huge!

Here's Jeff applying the stain.

All done!

Starting to build the stairs.

Here's what it looks like now.  See how much space we've gained?   Let the parties begin!

I'm an amazing helper

I couldn't resist adding these photos of me helping with the deck.  Ignore the white white legs and totally lack of appropriate working attire and just look at the level of concentration in my face.  This tool was really fun to use and super easy too.  (I can't lie though, my abs and hands were sore the next day....I'm soooo out of shape). 

And if you READ MY BLOG EVERY DAY (no, I'm not shouting) and I know you do, you'll remember that Jeff found the screw gun at a garage sale for only 30 bucks!  He wasn't even looking for it...I think it was a God thing :)

Did you notice the demise of our urban garden in this picture?  Its ok, as mentioned in the previous post, Jeff is working on a bigger and better garden, and we are already planning how we can reuse the wood from those guys in some cool art project.  Stay Tuned!

Deck progress

For those of you that doubted Jeff could build an entire deck by himself in one weekend, shame on you. He did it...well almost. He took a few extra days, and while its not completely done (still need to stain and build stairs) we do have a bonafide giant deck in our back yard. 

Ok, so Jeff started on Saturday by finishing the frame for the deck. 

Sunday was Easter, a day of rest (Wesley gave us a two hour nap!), and Jeff had to go into work for a few hours, so not much progress on Sunday.  But he did take Monday off and sent me this picture of his progress with his little helper.

When I got home from work, it looked something like this. 

So he enlisted my help and we worked till 9 pm when we laid the last board!

Thats a deck screw gun I'm holding.  It was seriously fun to use and helped the job go really fast.  If you are going to be laying a deck, this is the way to go.


Nukie loves the deck too!

Yesterday, Jeff rented a sander from the Dept and made the deck nice and smooth and ready for stain.

He also worked til 10 pm last night building giant raised planters that will go on one side of the deck. 

We originally were going to put planters on both sides, but it was a little more pricey than we thought.  So the new plan is to have the planter on one side, and on the other side, put in a sand box for Wesley and his friends to play in.  I am so excited that its coming together.  I am so proud and impressed with Jeff. Aren't you?

what jeff made for dinner

Using fresh vegetables from our our urban garden, Jeff whipped up a tasty dinner for us.

yum!

"Sub"Urban Garden

Jeff has long been in like with the urban garden trend. We first spotted them at the county fair a few years ago and ever since Jeff has wanted to make some of his own. Welp, he finally did it. He reused lumber from one of our many sheds (I'll discuss that another day)...the one he tore down by himself on a whim. And this is the beautiful result.. Nothing fancy, he didn't even paint or stain the wood, he's much too impatient for that, but I think they look great. The best part is that they are totally functional. He went to Home Depot and picked up whatever plants were the cheapest and available: Bell Peppers, Basil, and a few kinds of Summer Squash. We were so surprised at how well the crops actually grew! Who knew squash plants grew so big! He definitely planted too many in there, but we still enjoyed the splendor. When we came home from vacation, we were surprised to see that we already had some zucchini ready to eat.
 

 I dubbed this our suburban garden because we definitely live in the suburbs and have plenty of room to to grow vegetables directly in the ground, but this concept looks so much better and keeps dog poop out of our future eats. They taste so much better that way :)