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Want to take a tour of my frugal backyard?

I thought it might be fun to show you around.

There are tomatoes, peppers, basil, and green onions growing here, in soil mixed with compost. (to compare, take a look at my plants in August)

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Red peppers are so beautiful, aren’t they?

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When we moved in, there was this weird concrete pad in the backyard. The previous owners had a grill there, but it’s not remotely convenient to the kitchen, so we keep our grill on the deck. I’ve decided that the best thing to do is to cover it with pots of plants. We’ve also been looking at deer fences on deerfence.com – but will buy some when there’s more money. I’d love to have a slightly larger garden, but the deer jump right over the current fences in our area.

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This is my heat pump, which has a device on it which allows my power company to cycle it off during times of peak summer usage. I got a $50 credit on my bill for four months this summer just for allowing them to install it. And we had such a cool summer, I don’t think it turned on even once.

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I have purple hyacinths growing on my fence. I got the seeds from my brother, and each year, I save the new crop of seeds to plant in the spring.

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Aren’t they pretty?

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I have some growing around my mailbox too, and those are much fuller than the ones on my fence, because they get more sun. But, my mailbox is in my front yard, not my backyard, so it doesn’t belong in this post. Also, I didn’t bother taking a picture of it this particular day.

Oh, wait. I do have a picture. This one was taken back in August, so the hyacinths are even more full and bushy now.

I love free plants.

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These are my children’s outdoor toys, all of which were hand-me-downs of some sort.

Do you see me?

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The basket you see in the previous picture holds my clothespins…

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…which I use on my retractable clothesline.

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These are my super cheap compost bins. I fill one up, let it sit, and use the second while the other one, well, composts.

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And lastly, here’s my children’s swingset. Our former neighbors gave it to us when they were upgrading. All we had to buy were the swings themselves.

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Hope you enjoyed the peek into my yard.

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Mrs. R.

Friday 4th of June 2010

SO fun to see pictures of your family's backyard! And I'm impressed with you all OVER again. :-) We're probably gonna copy your great ideas for compost bins. Thank you!!

Also---since I feel like you and your family are great cyber-"neighbors," I wanted to mention that I've heard hyacinth beans can be posonous to children adn pets. Here are some links froma quick Bing search (gotta go intervene with some toddler activity!):

----- http://www.gardenersnet.com/flower/hyacinthbean.htm ----- http://www.pcmg-texas.org/hyacinth_bean_vine.pdf --- http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/edible/msg061121455574.html?26

With gratitude for all the fabulous ideas, humor, photos, Godliness and help from your sites!

Kimberly

ksmedgirl

Monday 2nd of November 2009

@Kristen I wondered about your compost "bins". Did you drill holes in the bottom to let worms in? My compost area is an this black flexible round thingie with holes all around, no cover. Does it compost faster in the sealed box?

Kristen

Friday 23rd of October 2009

@ksmedgirl I actually took these pictures a few weeks ago, but only got around to posting them just now. I pulled out several tomato plants a couple of days ago, but my peppers are still alive.

I'm in the MidAtlantic region, so it hasn't frozen here quite yet. In fact, we had temperatures in the 70s the last two days (which is a little bit unusual).

Franci

Thursday 22nd of October 2009

Here in NZ it's the norm to have a clothes line - many people don't have driers, so I'm a little surprised (and feel sorry for you, hehe) that you only have one line! Here you get either rotary lines (like this http://www.aussieclotheslines.com.au/images/core/enlargements/1%20-%20Folding%20Rotary%20Clotheslines/HILLS-Rotary-500-Hoist_l.jpg, or 2 poles with 4 - 8 lines (something like this http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RtvxPC7RNxo/ShMGr8ylznI/AAAAAAAABOc/KnDI1SHyIDQ/s400/2009+CLOTHESLINE.jpg, but often less pretty)

Sorry, I didn't know how to do nice and tidy links!

ksmedgirl

Thursday 22nd of October 2009

Where do you live that you still have stuff growing like that in October?? And did you drill holes in the bottom of your compost bins?

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