The garden is coming together, finally. Last year was full of trial and error (making lots of mistakes), and though they were expensive mistakes, we are so happy where it is all now and all the changes we made are for the better. We did a lot of switch-a-roo placement of things and while we still aren’t done, it’s one step closer the goal. Our Saturdays are spent in the garden and all the girls happily love lending a helping hand (see proof here).

I have more garden posts coming soon, and before the summer’s over, I’ll give you a tour of our backyard. The whole yard won’t be quite completed (about a quarter of it won’t be done until maybe Fall), but we are feeling good about the direction it’s all going.

Read more garden posts here…

P.S. My book will be released tomorrow (AHHH!!!), so I’ve got something special to share and a fun giveaway to go along with it! I can’t believe May 20th is really almost here!!!

Okay, it really lasted barely a week (instagrammed here), but they were all thoroughly enjoyed. Ben picked out some really good varieties (Tango and Kishu) to grow in the garden. They were seriously some of the best mandarins I have ever had. They had just perfect amount of sweetness and tang. Ben said they were like candy to him… so deliciously sour and sweet! I’m not typically a citrus person because I hate peeling the skin, but for these, I made an exception because they were so easy to peel and they were just so good that I couldn’t resist.

We have had the citrus trees for several months now, but since we are doing an almost complete overhaul of the placement of things in our yard, our citrus trees have just been growing in pots. We will be transplanting them to their more permanent location into some of our corten steel beds in about a month or so, and I can’t wait to get those settled in. Actually, I just can’t wait to be done with garden projects and enjoy the fruits of our labor, but those projects are really never-ending. Anyone else feel that way about their backyard?

Well, the wood garden beds were taken apart to make room for some heavy duty corten steel beds. We’re having to do some switching around because some of our trees weren’t doing too good in the soil (gardening is all about live and learn I guess!), so we are raising them up to go into beds. We’ve had a specialist from Dave Wilson’s Nursery come out and he said that would be the best solution to get them thriving again. Some were doing good, but some were doing bad.

After much debate, and maybe disagreements, we decided to go with Cor-ten steel beds. Since we’re putting in trees in and wanted a container that will last a long, long, long time, this is what we opted for. After we took apart the wooden beds, we could already see a lot of deterioration on parts of the wood, so we knew going this route would be the best option for what we’re planning. We like the industrial metal look (as can be seen be the amount of metal furniture we have in our home and our use of steel I-beams in our backyard), and the rust that forms on Cor-ten steel serves as a protective coating around the core which, ironically, dramatically slows the rate of future corrosion. The other name of this type of steel is called weathering steel.

I wish we can say we DIY-ed this ourselves, but nope, we didn’t. Our neighbors who could clearly peep into our backyard from their second floor probably think we’re crazy for the different things we put in our yard. It looks just like big giant metal boxes now, but it will look so cool once we get everything in! At least I think (and hope) it will. I’ve pinned many corten steel garden beds in my garden board and I always love the look of it, so I’m sure I will love the look of it in our yard too.

You have to have a lot of patience when dealing with creating a garden because it’s not like all these plants and things happen instantaneously (though it would be nice if with a snap of my fingers to suddenly have what I envision in my head). There is so much planning, investing, and learning (and mistakes!) involved. I’ll continue to share updates on the garden and how the Cor-ten steel beds work for us!

Last year, we started our orchard backyard culture. The end of last year some of the trees started not doing so well, so we had to figure out the problem and a solution. There were fights between us regarding this (and cause this is one expensive hobby). So after working this out on paper, we’re flip flopping the tree placement with the vegetable garden. In addition to that, we’re changing out our garden beds. It’s been a bit frustrating to deal with, but we’re rolling with the punches because sometimes you just have to learn from your mistakes. We aren’t professionals by any means, but we (mainly Ben) does all the research he can so we have a thriving garden to enjoy.

While our backyard looks insanely messy now, I’m hoping in a few months, it will look good again. Now we just have to wait for Ben’s rotator cuff to heal so that he can get back to digging. I can’t wait to get everything planted back in the ground; all our trees our currently in pots again!

We honestly have never ending backyard projects going on. We make mistakes, learn from them, and have to try something else out. Ben’s been working on building another garden bed and we’re going to be doing a switch-a-roo and switch the placement of our fruit trees and our veggie garden. Then, there’s this big plot of dirt we have on the side of the house that I can’t exactly decide what I want just yet. Seriously, the outside project list never ends.

As much as I complain that we really don’t get much of a cozy winter her in SoCal (I’m a cold weather gal!), it is a perk to still be able to garden and be able to play outside in the winter. This particular day, actually New Year’s eve, we all just hung out outside. I was watching Ben work (and helped him here and there), the girls were playing (and fighting), and it was just kind of slow paced and nice. We didn’t get around to planting a winter garden this year, but our citrus trees do have some pretty fruit on it; Ben’s had one of the tangerines and he said it was so juicy and sweet!

Making decisions for the backyard honestly stress me out. I have my garden pinterest board that I always look through, and one minute I know what I want to do in an area, then I change my mind the next minute. I wish I had the brain of a landscape architect to help us with some decisions. Ben is already talking about completely redoing the front yard to put an edible garden there too, but I’m telling give me a couple more years for that, my brain can only take so much! HA!

1) From the best smelling rose bush in my garden. 2) I love fresh flowers by my bedside. 3) The first camellia bloom of the season.

I’ve been sick these past few days (Ben even had to call out of work to stay home and keep the house running), so these images from a couple weeks ago are reminding me that things will turn rosy again soon! To see more instagram snippets, just follow along with me here.