June 1, 2011

Backyard DIY: They Moved Out

Remember these?


I know you remember this:


It's kind of seared into my mind, too. Ugly doesn't even describe it - maybe hazardously ugly?

And, as you may remember from my cheapskate backyard math, we did indeed put a lot of back shoulder-breaking effort into it. But - finally - my dear baby tomato seedlings have grown up and found a place of their own. They  might even have babies.

Mmmmm....delicious babies.....


See how they're planted in perfect rows? And all thanks to this perfectly logical and not at all over-complicated and useless technique that I came up with all on my own:


Yeah. Me neither. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but after a while I felt like Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment. 

That's my mom's joke.

Budget-wise (or frog-wise, as Karl Pilkington would say), we spent $23 on the seeds and potting soil and $13 on the bags of topsoil we needed to replace the sandbox that was under the old "patio". And you better believe that - unlike 2008, when we planted 28 tomato seedlings at $5 a pop and ate not. a. single. tomato. - I'm not letting even one tomato go to waste this year.

See? I'm reformed.  

And so is this 27 square foot patch of my backyard: