Returning to it's Roots - In the Garden

I was going through my stockpile of photos looking for a shot or two of our old "stage" for the kids, when I happened upon these photos.  These just touch my heart.  This is almost a year ago and you can see that the stage was showing some wear and tear (notice the tape on one side) but it was still a great platform for performing and pretend play. 

Alex came up with a brilliant idea to put flour on the drums (drums created in a previous project) and do a concert, a la Blue Men Group!

 The photos really tell the story:

These two drum tops were a little floppy...perfect for Alex's plan.

Enter Miss G!

Testing out the process.

This would be great in a dark room with a black light on, wouldn't it?

Miss G couldn't resist a little taste test before they were finished.

SOME GREAT MEMORIES FROM THE REPURPOSED STAGE!

Before this became a stage it was the base support for a bed...instead of tossing it out, we just added a piece of plywood, some carpeting and trim to create a platform "stage" for the children to play on.

And now it returns to it's roots!  

Here it is being repurposed as our new raised-bed vegetable garden :

We flipped it upside down and added some more 2x6 boards to build up the sides.

We threw some river rock down to cover up some of the bare earth.

Once the sides were built up we filled it with dirt from the local landscape supply, added some 2x4's to create a frame for our plant net, and finally added some starter plants:

I thought about staining the wood to make it all "pretty" but the hubby pooh-poohed that idea quickly.  Apparently a raised garden bed does not need to look "pretty".  I don't know what his problem is ~ it's not like I wanted him to stain it !! 

It only gets sun from noon to about 7pm...I hope that's enough for the plants to thrive. 

We will soon find out.

*** SEPTEMBER UPDATE***

Um, I think the answer to that question about getting enough sun is YES!  It get's just the right amount of sun.  That must have been some good dirt too because I've never had a single tomato plant produce as much as the one in this garden bed did!

String beans daily and a few Jalapeno peppers

Crates and crates of tomatoes!

This garden produced a phenomenal amount of tomatoes (2 varieties), zuchini squash, string beans, radishes and carrots.  I got a couple of jalapenos, but the bell pepper only managed to pop out one mini bell.  The onions were crowded out and the lemon cucumber (replanted 3x) just could not coexist in this small of a space.  

Very successful first year with our raised garden bed!!!

It was definitely worth the effort and space.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sherry