Make do in the yard from scraps

I have done a lot in my yard and garden to improve the looks of my home and to grow fresh vegetables. Almost everything was done using scraps and old material.

I could go into a lot of detail on many of the projects here, but don’t want a tremendously long article that no one would read. I will tell about one flower bed around a tree. I previously publish an article and some photos about the building of another flower bed which was built with no cost except labor.

There was one place in the yard, under some trees with little growing around it. My wife suggested planting “Daddy Flowers” there. I don’t know the name of the plants. We originally got one plant from my father many years ago. They multiply so fast that we have them in several pots and a few other places now. In some places they needed thinning out. They grow in the shade and stay green all year.

Now the question was what to use as a border around the bed to keep the soil from washing away. I could not think of anything at first that would be as high as I wanted to go. We had some stones and bricks around. Later I figured out a better way, but what I did on this bed has worked fine.

I took some soil from vegetable beds which would be replaced later with compost and chicken fertilizer. I mixed this soil with some compost and chicken fertilizer and put it around the tree. Then I took what loose stones I could find and some bricks we had and put them around the soil.

This bed was made and the only cost was the labor. It has held up well for several years so far. I know it does not sound like much. I have published a photo of the bed and plants and it can be seen by clicking on the link below.

http://www.gather.com/viewImage.jsp?fileId=3096224744349963&memberId=67122