{Gardening} South Side

Hello friends! Happy Monday!

A couple weeks ago I was able to work outside and finally put 5 of the 6 recycled buckets to use in my south side yard. This part of our yard isn't very big, and technically our neighbor owns maybe one foot of it, so I can't do much. We added a raised bed to it last year and so I knew it would be a great spot for some extra beds. Plus, it's on the south side of our yard and gets full sun. 

Doug helped me out by mowing a bunch of the weeds and then chopping some of the big trees and weeds. 

I don't know the measurements but it's a pretty good length between our HVAC and meter to our fence. Last year it went way out of control and the weeds were everywhere. We definitely needed to do something different this year! 

Above shows the placement of the 5 barrels. I received them from an old coworker's husband who is a farmer. I now want about 10 more! I buried them about 4-5" deep. I'm still planning on adding more but this was done quickly and on a tiny budget (ok, it was supposed to be free but I can't stop with plants). 

Excuse the mess in the back, it's still a work in progress. 

And then I added a bunch of baby plants. It's all grown since this photo so I'll get out and update this post soon. I bought the simple trellis at Walmart for the cucumber to grow up. We have them in our main garden too but I thought this would be fun. The pots have peppers, gourds, and tomatoes. There are some flowers and a lot of herbs that surround the buckets. 

My plans for this space include getting a small retaining wall built (maybe just one stone high) and mulching everything to help with water retention. I'd like to put gravel under the meter to prevent weeds from growing around it and the HVAC system. If I do that, I'll continue the border/wall to them. There's only one other bed between the HVAC system and the front of our house. I'd like more buckets to fill in some more space. Maybe I need to call my old coworker again! I do have one more bucket but I was thinking of using it elsewhere. Maybe I should just use it here again and move on with other plans. 

Anyway, here's to more updates now that it's summer. My computer is acting up and I start grad school today so fingers crossed all goes well!!