Remember how I told you we had a productive day on Sunday?

Well, one of those projects included reusing the edging that we took out of the bed in the front of the house. Where did we put those, do you ask? Why, we put them in the garden!

Way back in the spring, we dug out the sod and created a simple edge. That was okay, but see the difference between this:

And this?

It’s way, way fancier right?

Right. Now that we all agree on the fanciness of our garden, we can now talk about how we did this little project.

First, we did a rough measurement to guess if we’d have enough stones to make it around the entire garden. Turns out we’d have about the right amount, although not exactly how we’d like.

But we went ahead and got started anyway. It only took a few minutes for us to replace our rough edge with our real edge. You can see the partially laid ones all wonky and the nice ones behind Wyatt.

 

I’m super blessed to have a willing partner for all these projects. What a lucky, DIY wife I am, right?

Step two was to rake back all the mulch to protect it from getting all dirty while we worked on the edge.

However, since the stones are pre-made in either straight or curved pieces, we had too many curved pieces and not quite enough straight ones. So, we had a dilemma. And we started to brainstorm how to use the pieces we had and make them work. Which means that our straight side pieces now have a slight wave to them.

We decided we’d not worry too much about it since we may expand the garden anyway in the spring (we already need more room!) and we may need to reconfigure the edge then anyway. So, we’re fine that they look a little odd for now. Basically, we just wanted to make sure we didn’t do too much extra sod removal. We just made it fit as close as possible.

 

It’s not too crazy, is it?

 

And again, remember we’ll probably be replacing/rearranging it next year to expand into the empty area to the left.

For one thing, it’s just so much better than it was before! As we worked our way down the garden, we kept turning to admire our work. Both of us were shocked to see how awesome it looked, with so little work.

Why was this so much easier than the rock edge in the front? Well, two reasons:

1. This one didn’t need to be level. Since it’s a garden edge and not a retaining wall, we just followed the lay of the land. To explain more, as the yard slopes down toward the trees, we just let the stones lay parallel to the ground. In the front, we needed to make it level so that it matched the house, which is of course level. This means we didn’t need sand which saved a lot of time.

2. We only used one level…meaning, no stacking needed. We could “cheat” a little on each stone and it wouldn’t matter. And the edge was already there, just a bit overgrown, so no sod-stripping needed.

Also, I just realized that we never did a post talking about how we built the front edge…anyone interested in that? If so, just ask and we can write up a post about it.

I just really enjoy how fancy this little guy looks next to his spiffy new edging.

It’s amazing how awesome this totally free, totally recycled project looked. Especially when you consider it only took us 30 minutes from start to finish!

I think this edge is my new favorite part of the garden…although I also love the eggplants. And the tomatoes. And our asparagus. Okay, it’s all my favorite! What’s your favorite?

Bonus question, because I’m curious…what’s the best free project you’ve ever done–this one may top my list for now!