When we were looking for houses in Utah I really wanted a house with a large yard. That was one of the reasons for looking in Davis County. We found a great house with a large yard and I was really excited about having a large area for the kids to run around in. This is a picture of the yard when we made an offer on this house in early July.
It also had a large garden area which was not really a selling point for me. I don't garden. I have a black thumb - I kill everything - over watering - under watering - too much attention - too little attention. I don't know. It's just not my thing. I love flowers and think it would be awesome to have flowers growing back there, but not sure I want to put in the effort that requires. I'm always looking for flowers or plants that are easy to grow and come back each year (and some magical way to take care of weeds). I haven't had a lot of interest in having a vegetable garden, but I thought it would be fun to have a pumpkin patch, so thought maybe we could at least try to plant some pumpkins in there.
You can see the garden on the left - slightly yellower area. They had raised garden boxes around the outside of the garden and some fruit trees. And even had some vegetables growing in there.
About a month and a half later when we took possession of the house the garden looked like this.
There were crazy weeds, some with stalks as big around as a quarter, and taller than most of our kids. Snakes were living in there (((shudder))) and it was just completely overwhelming. Scott and I talked often about burning it.
There were also a ton of wasps, mosquitos and other biting mystery insects living out there. The kids had a lot of high anxiety about venturing out there.
The first day we had possession of the house I brought the kids over and Emma fell off the play structure because she saw a wasp. Poor Emma. She is VERY scared of bugs and we are trying to get her to be less frightened - exposure therapy.
Scott used a hedger to cut down a lot of the weeds in the garden so it was at least not a jungle going into winter. Over the fall, winter and spring we discovered that our yard floods. It didn't get that bad for us this winter but about 60% of our next door neighbor's back yard was under water nearly ever big rain. It would creep through from the neighbor behind us, through our yard and into theirs where it stayed. They are installing a pump for their back yard and we will probably do something similar. Some of the fruit trees in the yard have died because of the water and flooding.
The garden just waited for us all winter and didn't get too floody
As it started to get warmer the weeds started to grow again and there were getting pretty high. We mowed them down as much as we could with the lawn mower then used a small tiller (rented from Home Depot) to start to till up the soil. It was a lot of work and didn't work that well. I mowed and Scott went behind and tilled. It was again very overwhelming. It's a big space and I already feel like my plate is pretty full so not super pumped about taking on this huge garden area.
I spent several hours mowing most (maybe 2/3) of the lawn with the push mower. Some of the grass, especially back in the floody places, was pretty thick and deep. So much work. Our neighbor has mowed our grass a lot and let us borrow his ride on mower. Scott just bought a ride on mower this past weekend, so maybe mowing will be easier for us from now on. Matthew is very excited to mow. This picture is Scott riding our neighbors mower last fall.
I tried planting some flowers in the front - then we had a freeze that weekend and they mostly died. Maybe they just died because I didn't plant them very well. One white plant is hanging on. My mom is kind of a gardening wizard and I wish she was here to help me.
My father-in-law is the king of yard work and he helped us a lot with the yard in the fall and was here this weekend and helped us whip the yard and garden into shape. He and Scott tilled the garden again with a much bigger and better tiller (also rented from Home Depot) and the soil looked really nice!! They put some landscape fabric down 'cause I just want to keep the weeds in check but I'm not sure if its the best thing to do. A storm came through just an hour or so after putting the fabric down and tore most of it up. Our neighbors scrambled and tried to put things on to keep it from flying away but most of it came up. The next day I tried to lay it back out again and hold it down with bricks and paver stones. The plan was to cut some holes to plant the pumpkin plants in but I'm not sure this is the best solution. After tilling the first time the weeds started to come back so quickly. I feel like if I turn my back they will all grow back and I don't want to spend all summer pulling weeds in that giant space. Part of me wants to get rid of the garden and just turn it back to grass.
I've also considered putting raised planter beds in the back 2/3 of the garden with mulch around them as walkways and a fire pit area in the front. I thought a smaller area of raised beds would be easier to manage.
Oh garden, you are the worst! In more capable and industrious hands I'm sure it would be a great and productive garden. But I feel tired all the time just from being a mom of five kids and don't want to go work in the garden that much. So I don't know what will become of our garden. Maybe we can find a solution that will work for us.
