Veggies for Frugal-Lazy-Dummies, First in a Series

Yep, it’s a new series that’s sweeping the nation: the “Frugal-Lazy-Dummies” series.  I think, though, that starting it off with a look at home vegetable gardens is a baaaaad place to begin.  I have found that vegetable gardening is NOT Frugal, NOT lazy, and NOT for dummies.

Maybe I should just call this post “How to Make an UnFrugal Vegetable Garden”. That also hits the nail on the head.

As I mentioned before, all I wanted for my birthday this year was a vegetable garden.  I told my husband, he agreed it was a FINE idea, and to leave all the pesky details to him.  Sounds good to me.

Since my birthday’s in April, I was expecting any day now to see my husband out in the backyard, shovel in hand, digging up grass.  Instead I awoke one recent, fine Saturday morning to find three strangers with big machines busy as beavers in my back yard.  Say what?!!?

Well, it turns out that my husband (for some strange reason) wasn’t looking forward to spending days and days and days digging up grass.  So he called a landscaping company and it also turns out that they have this neat machine called a “sod cutter” that just basically peels back the grass in layers. Much easier than one lone man with one lone shovel.

The soil here in North Texas is terrible for growing vegetables.  It’s pretty much just red clay.  So those three nice men also brought along a big pile of rich, dark topsoil.

When all was said and done, in about two hours those nice men had turned a grassy side patch of my backyard into this:

Pretty good, eh? This is bigger than it looks in the picture,  22′x34′.  That’s a good-sized beginner garden.  And see - I’ve already managed to grow a couple of goofy doggies.

Now, I don’t know how much it cost to do this, but I fear the worst. Those three nice men worked hard and fast.  But it looks great, and no pesky grass to choke my artichokes.

But this is just the foundation of my garden.  Next, we needed a way to keep goofy doggies out of the veggies. So my husband went to Big Lots and found an attractive option.  I’m proud of him for embracing the Big Lots allure; he is not Frugal and generally HATES going to Big Lots.  But I give him lots of credit for this one:

He found a metal trellis with a gate for the entrance, and six individual trellis’ with pretty scrollwork for the side panels.  We can grow flowers or beans or viney fruits all over this “fence”. Plus, this arrangement is great for keeping goofy doggies out of my garden.

Not cheap, but pretty, effective, and I hope a reasonably good deal because it was purchased at Big Lots.  But as you all know, my heart has been broken before by Big Lots.

So that’s the Not Frugal part of the whole dealio.  Now we come to the NOT LAZY part.

Even though those three nice men did the hardest part for us, there is still a lot of grunt work involved.  I saw a pretty picture of a vegetable garden in Southern Living magazine, and decided I wanted to pattern my own on that one.  So that means my nice, not lazy hubby has to pile the dirt into various landscaping-timber surrounded beds.  That’s where things stand now - he made a good start on that this weekend, but still has a ways to go. That’s why this is only the First In A Series. I didn’t get around to talking about the Not for Dummies aspect of vegetable gardening, but I will save that for a later post.  This has already gone on long enough.

I’m pretty impressed so far.  I bet you are, too.  Can’t wait to find out more!