BKYD Life

Gather. Create. Grow.

Backyard gardening

Garden Sheds and Retreats

Do you have a garden shed? I have been seeing so many on Pinterest (you can check out all the ones I have pinned, here) and would like to put one in our yard.

Here are just a few images that I have saved for inspiration…

So, tell me about your garden shed. How do you use it? Is it just utilitarian with garden tools and supplies or is it a destination in your backyard? Can you relax in it? Maybe you use it as a home office? Do you have electricity? How about a way to cool it in the heat of the summer or warm it in the winter?

I need to decide how to incorporate one in my backyard. They are so charming and add so much character to a space. I have a small yard so I will need to be careful of the ratio of sizing to my space, but with that in mind the details are what do it for me. What do you think? Reach out and let me know your thoughts.

In the coming months, I will do my research and make some decisions. For now, I want to consider a custom built versus a pre-made, or kit, option. I will let you know what we decide.

Let’s Talk Compost

I grew up in my Italian grandmother’s tiny kitchen. Out of that small space she would regularly create incredible meals for 40+ guests. It all seemed so natural. You really don’t need a lot of space, if you use it well.

One of the lessons I learned from my grandmother in that tiny space was to use a little bit of it for a compost bin. The laundry room was right next to the kitchen so grandma would keep a bin on the dryer and put the food scraps in it. Once it was full, she would transfer it outside.

What to Compost

Items you can compost from your kitchen include ~

  • Fruits and vegetables
  • Eggshells
  • Coffee grounds and filters
  • Tea bags
  • Nut shells

Other common household items you can compost include ~

  • Shredded newspaper
  • Cardboard
  • Paper
  • Yard trimmings
  • Grass clippings
  • Houseplants
  • Leaves
  • Fireplace ashes
Compost Pile

Why to Compost

There are three main reasons to compost~

  • To create fertile soil
    • Composting enriches the soil and helps retain moisture which will suppress plant diseases and pests.
    • It also reduces the need for chemical fertilizers.
  • To close the loop (and give back to the earth that which was taken from it)
    • Composting encourages the production of beneficial bacteria and fungi that break down organic matter to create humus, a rich nutrient-filled material.
  • To work less
    • Composting is natural. When trees drop their leaves in the fall it is to isolate the roots. When we compost, we are following in Mother Natures example.

How to Compost in your Backyard

  • Select a dry, shady spot near a water source for your compost pile or bin. When your kitchen bin is full, transfer the contents to the outside bin.
  • Your compost pile should have an equal amount of greens to browns. Greens includes materials such as grass clippings, vegetable waste, fruit scraps, and coffee grounds. Browns are materials such as dead leaves and twigs or small branches.
  • Keep everything moist, it will break down faster than if it stays dry.
  • Turn the contents of your bin or pile over regularly.
  • Once your compost pile is established, mix grass clippings and green waste into the pile and bury fruit and vegetable waste under 10 inches of compost material.
  • When the material at the bottom is dark and rich in color, your compost is ready to use. This usually takes anywhere between two months to two years.

In the Phoenix Metro area, the city will provide you with a compost bin for a nominal fee. You can read more about it here. Don’t live in Phoenix? Search your cities website for composting resources.

If you have a garden, do you compost? You should. Your garden will thank you ~ literally thank you with a much better crop!

Gardening Costs: Know before you Grow

Last week, I wrote about using your garden to eat healthy on a budget. Missed it? You can read all about it here. Today, I want to talk about the real costs associated with a garden. Costs to consider when starting a garden include:

  • Cost of plants or seeds
  • Cost to provide nutrient-rich soil (dirt, fertilizer, and worms)
  • Cost to protect and structure plants (cages, coverings, and fences)
  • Cost to water plants
  • Cost of tools and accessories (tiller, gloves, and spade)

Community Gardening Costs

If you start your gardening journey in a community garden, some of these costs will be mitigated. I did a quick on line search of community gardens in the Phoenix Metro Area. Plot prices can go from $80-120 annually. This includes the nutrient dense soil and watering costs. Some community gardens offer tool use and even tool storage, along with a master gardener to answer questions or host garden talks. This is not only a simple way to explore the adventure of gardening and see if it is for you, but you can learn from others and make friends while doing so.

The costs of plants or seeds, protection or structures and tools are all that is left. You can be price conscious when shopping for these items. Plants and seeds can be found on sale or you can ask friends and neighbors to share cuttings or seeds. Last year, I wrote about using seeds gathered from produce you currently have on hand. You can read about it here.

Protection and structures, along with tools can either be found on sale, at garage sales or even found items. Is someone in your neighborhood throwing out wood posts left over from a project? That might be just right for the climbing plants you planted. When you are working with a budget, you need to be creative and think outside the box with how to use items in another way.

Community Gardening Benefits

The benefits of gardening at a community garden include all the benefits of gardening in your backyard. These benefits include fresh produce and a day well spent with your hands in the dirt. Fruits and vegetables gradually lose nutrients after harvest. A vegetable harvested from your garden and eaten the same day will have higher nutritional content than an identical vegetable that has spent several days or weeks sitting in storage, transport, and store displays. There are many studies that have documented the positive effects of gardening on physical and mental well being. And any teacher will tell you, including this one, that when kids participate in gardening they are more likely to eat their vegetables.  Community gardening adds the ‘community’ element that also positively impacts our mental health. We need people as much as we need fresh fruits and vegetables.

Final Thoughts on Gardening Costs

This article may seem like I am a big proponent of Community Gardening. I wouldn’t say that I am and I wouldn’t say that I am not. I would say that gardening can be expensive. Between creating beds and filling them with nutrient dense soil to the watering and maintenance, tools and structure costs you really need to know that you will enjoy gardening before you commit the money needed. Now the beds and soil cost will be amortized over time, tools too! Seeds can be if you harvest from current produce, but water costs will be incurred every year. Gardening is not without risk.  Bugs, a streak of unseasonable weather, or other nature-related problem, may wreak havoc on your garden. But for most gardeners, the return on investment pays off. So I do suggest community gardening as a way to ease into this wonderful adventure that will save you money in the long run.

Eating Healthy on a Budget

We all know that healthy eating includes lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. But did you know you can do it AND stay on budget? Here are a couple tips to accomplish your health and budget goals.

  • Plan your meals for the week and then prep them ~ you are more likely to follow your plan when you have reduced the daily preparation time
  • Shop for seasonal produce ~ the prices are lower when an item is in season
  • Review the sales section in your local newspaper for grocery store ads and shop the produce on sale
  • Start a garden ~ you can easily grow some of your produce for your weekly meal plan

Let’s take a closer look at that last idea. Many vegetables for a simple salad are easy to grow in a small amount of land or in pots on a balcony.

Lettuce

Lettuce is not only the base for many salads, it grows quickly and can be harvested easily. You can simply snip the tops of the plants or pick leaves as needed. Lettuce takes up very little space. It can even be grown in containers, perhaps accompanied by flowers or tucked under taller plants. You can even plant the seeds in partly shady areas.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes are, possibly, the most popular vegetable for any size garden. You can grow tomatoes in hanging baskets or other containers as long as they get lots of sun and have support for their stalks. Starter plants from a garden center, your local hardware store or a nursery are the easiest to grow. I even saw some on my latest trip to the grocery store. You can get both tomatoes and tomato plants at Whole Foods, who knew?

Pro tip ~ If you plant basil next to the tomato plants, you’ll naturally repel pests and even improve the flavor of the tomatoes—and, luckily enough, like other herbs, basil is simple to grow as well. On top of that, herbs will increase the flavor in your salad. And when your salad is full of flavor you will enjoy it even more. You will then want to eat more salads, so this is a bonus no matter how you chop it!

Kelly Neil Photo

Cucumbers

I love the crunch of cucumbers in a salad. Cucumbers like sunlight and warm temperatures, as well as support for climbing. Thanks to their vertical growth, cucumbers do well in containers and with a little water they grow almost like weeds. You’ll probably have enough cucumbers to donate to your neighbors.

Dim Hou Photo

Radishes

Radishes are a nice addition to a salad. But you can also enjoy them as appetizers, snacks and side dishes. Even though not everyone loves them, once you see how easy they are to grow, you might add them to your garden. They take just 20 days to reach full size! 

Other Easily Grown Vegetables

Carrots are pretty easy to grow. The only thing about carrots is they might not grow very large, especially if you have rocky soil. Deep, well-drained soil is preferable—a raised bed is a good idea. Nevertheless, carrots are simple and fun to grow (your kids might even want to help). They tolerate light shade too, although, like most plants, they prefer full sun.

Mor Shani Photo

All sorts of green beans, from snap beans (or string beans) to shell or whole beans are ideal for home gardens. There are hundreds of varieties to choose from, and snapping beans to harvest them is kind of entertaining. I’ve had better luck with the vine type compared to the self-support bush types of snap peas, but the bush types require less space. Both types grow easily from seeds. Most beans prefer full sun and well-drained soil.

Like beans and cucumbers, zucchini plants are prolific, whether they are grown in containers or directly in mounded soil. Like beans and radishes, they grow easily from seeds. They need good moisture, though, and prefer warm soil, so it’s best to sow seeds later in the warm season (a good plant for gardening procrastinators!).

Jocelyn Fletcher Photo

Pumpkins are relatively easy to grow and are great to have around during the autumn season. As you probably know from baking and carving, there are different types of pumpkins and some are simpler to grow than others.

Now you have some easy to grow vegetables to assist with your healthy eating on a budget journey. And, remember if you have children they can help in the garden and that can promote healthy eating as well.

Planning a Spring Garden

If you are new to gardening, it is always best to start with a plan. Here are a couple simple steps to having a bountiful harvest or at least enjoy the process. Tools you will need include; pencil and graph paper, a tape measure and information about what you want to plant.

Planning Steps

Did you plant a garden last year? Did you take notes about what worked and what didn’t? This is helpful information so get it out and have it handy as you plan for this year. And, let this serve as a reminder or maybe a nudge (if you didn’t take notes in the past) to take notes as this year’s garden grows. Trust me, those notes will serve your future gardening adventures.

  1. Read through your notes from past years. Review what worked and what didn’t. Sketch your garden beds on the graph paper and make note of the size of beds you have.
  2. Do you have any seeds leftover from last year? What supplies will you need this year? Make a list. Decide whether to purchase online or from your local garden center.
  3. Start marking your garden layout where to plant which seeds or seedlings. Information you will need includes: sun exposure in each section of the bed(s) vs. sun exposure needs per variety, watering needs per variety and spacing per variety.

Now that is all the pencil and paper planning. But here are some resources to assist you with the decisions that go into the planning.

  1. Mother Earth News ~ you can sign up for regular information about when to plant and what to plant based upon your zip code. I find this very helpful since my planting seasons are much different than the rest of the US. Living in the Desert Southwest doesn’t mean I can’t garden, just that I need to know and understand my climate as it relates to planting.
  2. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds ~ is a great resource to learn about the seeds you want to plant. They have broken it down by space, water and sun needs and so much more. You can also order your seeds directly from them if you are interested.
  3. Gardeners ~ has a large selection of tools and supplies for every type of garden and gardener.
  4. Farming My Backyard ~ wrote a post all about planning and what to consider throughout the year.
  5. Tenth Acre Farm ~ wrote a post all about starting your seeds inside so you have seedlings to plant.
  6. SchneiderPeeps ~ has a downloadable gardening notebook to help you keep track and make planning easier for next year.

Happy planning friends! And tag us on social media with a photo of your plans.

Garden and Lawn Maintenance: 10 Tips to Beat the Heat

We’re well into summer and I hope you and your families have been enjoying the sunshine in your backyards. If you live in high heat or desert climates like Phoenix, you know that temperatures can soar way past comfortable. To ensure that your backyards survive, and even thrive, in extreme heat you’re going to have to put a little extra effort into garden and lawn maintenance.

Don’t worry; I’ve gathered some expert tips to help you with that. Here’s what you should be thinking about every year ahead of extremely high temps.

Lawn Maintenance in Extreme Heat

Large lawn behind a house showing summer lawn maintenance

Increasing summer temperatures don’t just take a toll on us – our lawns feel drained and stressed out too! If you want to keep your lawns looking lush, green, and healthy in extreme heat you will have to adjust how you approach lawn maintenance according to the season. Here are some helpful tips.

1. Mowing Your Lawn: The Right Height

Man mowing the lawn with a lawn mower

Who doesn’t love a short, well-manicured lawn? But don’t make the mistake of cutting the grass too short. This inhibits the grass’ ability to produce energy for growth. Grass develops stronger roots when cut at the correct height, supporting healthy growth and making it more tolerant of the stress that comes with high temperatures. Keep in mind that each variety of grass is different and has its own requirements. For the right lawn maintenance approach, research which cutting height is best for your grass type.

A good guideline regarding the height of your lawn is the “One-Third” rule: cut one-third of the grass height at a time. This rule allows less plant tissue to be removed, keeping your lawn cooler and minimizing the effect of the extreme heat.

2. Keep Mower Blades Sharp

The sharper the mower blade, the easier it is for the grass plant to heal. Dull blades tear the plant tissue, leaving the grass more prone to disease and stress.

3. Avoid Mowing During a Drought

Due to the stressful environment during a drought, the ability of the lawn to recover during this time is limited and mowing can cause more harm than good. For efficient lawn maintenance, mow after irrigation or rainfall and only when the grass is dry to avoid clumping.

4. Don’t Overwater

Sprinkler in grass showing lawn maintenance and watering

You may need more water, but your lawn does not. Overwatering is a common misconception for lawn maintenance during extremely high temperatures. The danger is that the more you water your lawn, the more the lawn relies on you to do so. To promote healthy root growth, stick to a regular watering schedule to allow the grass to regulate itself. For the most efficient use of water, irrigate your lawn early in the day to avoid molds and fungi. This also allows your grass to soak up a good amount of water before the moisture evaporates in the afternoon heat.

The key to lawn maintenance is to water thoroughly but less often. To do this, ensure that the root area is properly wet and do not irrigate again until the grass is dry. If it rains on a scheduled watering day do not water your lawn again. Keep in mind that most types of lawn only require one inch of water per week, including rainfall; and that a healthy lawn should only require water every 2-3 days.

5. Steer Clear of Fertilizers

You may be tempted to use fertilizers in extreme heat – don’t. Fertilizer stimulates growth, causing more consumption of energy which results in even more stress for the grass plant in the high temperatures of mid-summer.

Instead, use grass clippings. As they decompose, they act as a slow-release fertilizer for the plant and can positively impact the health of your lawn.

6. Decrease Traffic

It’s lovely to see the family out on the lawn in summer – the kids and grandchildren splashing about under the sprinkler. This is what summer memories are made of. Keep in mind, though, that foot traffic can inhibit the recovery of an already stressed lawn. I suggest installing stepping stones to help people avoid the grass. Try to keep your outdoor summertime entertainment off the lawn as much as possible – the patio makes for a great entertainment area. This will give your lawn a better chance of recovery and will help ensure that your lawn maintenance efforts aren’t in vain.

Garden Maintenance in Extreme Heat

Close-up of bee on a purple flower representing garden maintenance

Bright colors, flowers in bloom, and buzzing insects – these are just some of the beautiful things that come with summer. There’s also scorching heat that puts a strain on your plants and flowers, causing you to miss out on these beautiful sights. Like lawn maintenance, garden maintenance is also important in extreme heat.

Many of the lawn maintenance tips above apply here too, such as smart watering, using compost, grass clippings, or leaves as mulch and avoiding fertilizer. Here are a few additional tips to help your garden flourish in the harsh summer months.

1. Choose Plants that Love the Heat

When choosing what to plant, pick varieties bred for hot climates. Here are a few heat-tolerant options you may want to consider:

  • Succulents: These plants do well in hot, dry conditions and complement a rock garden nicely.
  • Marigold: Its vivid orange and yellow flowers are not only pleasing to look at, but this plant also deters pests when planted under tomatoes. Bonus!
  • Liatris Blazing Star: This perennial not only loves the heat but does well in winter too, as it is extremely hardy. It loves being exposed to full sunlight and its long purple spikes attract butterflies – is there anything more summery than that?
  • Sunflowers: As the name suggests, they love the heat and are drought-tolerant, growing best when exposed to direct sunlight for 6-8 hours a day.

For other heat-tolerant plants, consider sweet potatoes (they love warm nights and hot days), corn, hot peppers, eggplant, and cucumber – they all require little maintenance and lots of sun.

2. Plant Before Summer Arrives

For garden maintenance, consider planting in early spring and fall before the heat arrives in order to give your plants a better chance of survival. If you’d like more natural shade, I suggest planting trees and shrubs in the fall to allow growing time before the next summer’s extreme high temperatures.

3. Use Shade Cloth

If you’re looking for a temporary structure to provide relief from the sun, shade cloth is a great idea. It provides some much-needed shade for garden plants and is available in a variety of sizes and shade factors (degree of blocked sunlight). Care should be taken to position the shade cloth in a way that will not reduce aeration for the plants: above the plants will suffice. Additionally, your shade cloth should be able to withstand the elements such as high winds.  

4. Weeding

Weeding is an important step that shouldn’t be left out when it comes to garden maintenance in extreme heat. Weeds steal the much-needed water from your plants. I know this isn’t a fun exercise – especially in the intense summer heat – so be sure to weed early in the morning or in the evening so that you don’t overheat.

Garden and Lawn Maintenance: It’s Worth the Effort

Preparing your backyard for extremely high temperatures can be a tedious affair. However, all garden and lawn maintenance you do during this time will be well worth the effort once you see the result – a flourishing garden ready to help you create fond summer memories.

Is your backyard ready for the mid-summer heat? Do you have any garden and lawn maintenance hacks? Share them in the comments below.