Just another brick on the ground

If you’ve read this blog for very long, you know that I love bricks. Red and yellow bricks are all over our yard as edging and pavers.

Monday I did a project I’ve wanted to do for some time. Apparently, our back door (just visible at upper left) was originally south of its current location. The sidewalk is just south of where the door currently opens, which means we must stand on the lawn to enter the door. Therefore, that patch is chronically bare. I hated the way it looked. I hated the mud and dust we tracked in because we had to stand on bare ground.

I took a stack of spare bricks and laid them out in that ugly place. As I anticipated, I didn't have enough spares. So I pulled the nails out of the fence posts I had rescued from the landfill. I removed the bricks I was using for edging the flower garden next to the back door and replaced them with the fence posts, now landscape timbers (shown at top in above picture). Those repurposed bricks weren’t enough, so I removed bricks from a straightway in other garden, replacing them with another fence post turned landscape timber.

The bricks sit up a bit too high. I am running a sprinkler on the newly-laid bricks. I hope I can saturate the ground enough that walking on them will push them into the ground. If that doesn’t work, I’ll dig out some of the dirt so they will sit more level with the ground.

I don’t like the pattern yet, so will tinker with it later.

Sunday, I added more bricks to the sidewalk running from the street to the back door. I didn’t like the pattern I’d originally used. I changed it and added more bricks. I’d like to add more bricks, but I’ve run out.

Unfortunately, I never run out of ways to use bricks. No stockpile is ever enough for all I have in mind. I’ll just have to keep my eyes open for more of them.

Opportunity knocks

Junking, seeking items to turn from trash into treasure, can be intentional or opportunistic. I’ve found wonderful items when I was actually Dumpster diving and I’ve found equally wonderful items when I was doing something else.

For some time, I have desired to put pavers underneath our turkey fryer, which we use as an all-purpose outdoor cooking device. But I didn’t really want to buy the pavers. That’s no fun.

Last week, my boss tore out a bricked, fenced patio. When I saw the contents of the trailer he’d used for demolition, my eyes lit up. He had thrown several old fence posts into trailer, which I immediately saw as landscape timbers. I asked him for those. He said that I could take away any item that was in that trailer.

When I looked at it more closely sometime later, I noticed bricks in there. Nice big, thick, coated bricks. Perfect for getting the fryer’s legs off the ground. I brought both fence posts and bricks home.

Saturday morning I laid those bricks where I had envisioned them and put the fryer on top. I had just enough to do the job.

I put the cover back on and was very pleased with my work.

Hubby also grabbed opportunity recently when he took out some trash. A nice plastic tub was in the Dumpster with the price sticker still attached. He fished it out and covered the tiller’s engine with it. We have no place to store the tiller, so the tub will protect the engine from rain and dirt.

Keep your eyes peeled!

The pond garden

Pond Garden looking northeast. Coral bells and pepper plants are in foreground.

Pond Garden looking southwest. Blue spruce, pampas grass and volunteer green beans are in foreground.

The Frugal Gardener and her hubby have two main vegetable gardens. The narrow rectangles south of our house are the vegetable garden, currently planted with the Three Sisters on one side of the sidewalk and tomatoes and herbs on the other side of the walk. The other, an irregularly-shaped chunk of our backyard, is “The Pond Garden”.

The only water in that garden fills the bird bath. Hubby named it “The Pond Garden” because it’s shaped like a pond.

Our friend Kevin had shown us how to lay out natural-looking landscaping by using a garden hose. The hose marks sinuous curves for a relaxing, free-flowing appearance.

At that time, we had a large, ugly weed patch in our backyard. I hated it. I tried to avoid looking at it because I didn’t know what to do with it.

Then the mental light bulb turned on. I would turn that nasty patch into a garden, using the outlines of the weed patch to create natural-looking curves.

Instead of using a hose, I bought the cheapest can of orange spray paint I could find. I outlined the awful weed patch with the spray paint. Hubby tilled within the lines. I laid down salvaged red bricks for the border.

Previous owners had planted cedar trees and I had received a blue spruce from my brother and sister-in-love for my 40th birthday. We planted pampas grass in the gap between spruce and cedars for privacy, then scattered flowers in various parts of that garden. Flowers include coral bells and irises from my mother's garden. We have purple bee balm and lilies from Hubby's aunt's garden and coral hollyhocks from his parents' garden.

In the spaces that are left, we plant various vegetables each year. Volunteer buttercrunch lettuce returns every year.

An eyesore became something beautiful and productive for almost no money.