I'm building stuff

In process is a second coldframe, traditional type open box lidded with an old window (saved from our basement remodel). My coldframe house is almost big enough for all the seedlings I usually start- this way there is spillover room, plus I could put it out at ground level in the garden, maybe try and grow some lettuces or chard into winter months? Plus who wants to waste a good old window.

I'm making a few more garden beds! Using leftover pieces of planking from the deck repair my husband did last summer. (It's 'ground contact' lumber treated with copper azole- I looked it up- considered safe for building raised beds).

I've made two new spaces- the larger one is more cobbled together, some pieces are square post lengths, dug into the ground a bit.

It's evening out the edge of lawn, where the stairs extend out from the deck area. I'm hoping to train more clematis up the deck support poles here (which will also shield the two stumps where my old sink sits for mosquito larvae each summer).

I wish I was better at building stuff. You can see my new, smaller bed (needed space to walk around it) isn't straight, and one side is made of so many small pieces patched together it's very uneven. I braced outside the joins with bamboo pieces driven into the ground.

Did more of that here too, where one wooden edge of a bed against the garage wall collapsed last fall. Instead of rebuilding or replacing, I dug out some soil to prop it up straight again, and hammered bamboo pieces at intervals to hold it in place. Temporary fix. (Incidentally, it was lovely to feel how loose and soft the dirt is in this older bed now, compared to the heavy sticky clay mess where I started pulling out grass in the new unworked spot).

I should have cured my bamboo poles (remainders from when I made bamboo leaf mulch last summer) inside the house- a lot of them are moldy and breaking apart. The longest ones that are still strong I'm saving to maybe use for beans, if I decide to grow pole beans this year (iffy about that because of how poorly they've done against the bugs every time). The weak ones I broke up, they'll go in the bottom layer when I turn my compost pile, provide some aeration for a while.

I'd really like to have a load of landscaping bricks (like that lower left in this pic) to make all my beds sturdy, a few inches higher, and uniform in appearance- it really looks embarrassing sometimes how patched together my garden space is. But my husband balked when he saw the price of new bricks and how many I'd need! I haven't been able to find anyone taking apart an old patio, again. This larger bed in foreground is in the worst shape- I don't like that it's half stone, half wood either.

The bed by the tree stump got reworked, a bit. I dug out the space against the stump to straighten the smaller bricks there, pulled out a lot of the cedar shim wedges that block the gaps between the edging bricks- soil had crept behind them- and hammered them back in, lower so not as visible. Shoved a few under bricks from the outside to level them again, where they were leaning out.

For all my dissatisfaction at the patchy appearance, when I stand and look over the space- my little domain- eight planting beds now, it will be nine or ten when I'm finished- I feel quite pleased with anticipation at the prospects of growing stuff!