It’s not easy being green

It’s not easy being green

Ugh, sorry about the lack of posting yesterday. I was a little under the weather and just couldn’t do it. Too many burritos on Sunday, you guys. No joke. BUT, we’re back today, feeling normal, and we have a lot of of photos for you.

You may remember that we had landscaping done last September when our new deck was built, so they added grass and removed all of the old overgrown plants and trees that had gone super out of control, both in front of the deck and along the side of the driveway. It looked great… But then we had the world’s worst winter and weeds, leaves, patchy grass and mud is all that we were left with. We spent the last few weekends raking and pulling and digging and mulching — and got a TON of help from Andy’s wonderful parents — to completely transform our yard from a barren wasteland into a bright, cheerful place, and I’m so happy about it. Even our grass is starting to come back, woo!

The thing is, we’re not gardeners and we know from experience that we just can’t/won’t keep up with anything high maintenance. So we decided this year we wanted to keep things really clean and simple with just mulch and planters. I love these large blue planters from Lowe’s that are less than $10 (they come in a lot of colors and sizes). They’re so cheerful and are also nice and big so they can fit a lot of plants. We added three pots of geraniums in front of the deck and then three pots of veggies and herbs along the driveway, where there’s tons of sun.

We’ve had some success growing herbs before, but we have never tried veggies. We decided to try our hand at container gardening for the first time and got creative mixing different things together. The garden store is so much fun, you guys! We decided on three theme gardens, because you know I love a good theme. Our Mexican garden has cilantro, jalapeños, and orange peppers; our Italian garden has cherry tomatoes, basil, parsley and rosemary; and then our salad garden has romaine and strawberries. I did a lot of research about what plants can go together, but let’s be real, we’re just winging it. That means I’m sure some things will end up being huge mistakes, but whatever. There’s no point in taking it too seriously, right?

I’m looking forward to learning a ton from our gardening this year and expanding on it in the future. Mostly, I am SO EXCITED to start eating things we grew ourselves!!

What do you think? Are you doing any gardening this year? Did your yard survive this winter?

We’ll be back tomorrow to share a genius little trick we learned… Stay tuned!

— Kerry

P.S. Remember what our old deck and back yard looked like?? EEK!!