If you look really closely, you’ll see our weekend of work involved a few additions to the garden.

For one thing, we put the golf mat down to help kill the grass around the garden beds since we’re planning to take that out…eventually.

Also, the asparagus is now planted!

We knew we wanted the asparagus to be in a container, but not in the garden beds, because if it takes off, as we hope, it will take over everything. Plus, it takes up a lot of room, even if it stays small, so we didn’t want to “waste” our replantable garden beds with the asparagus, which will come back every year bigger than before, hopefully.

So, we researched several different container options, including some $35 half-sized whiskey barrels from Home Depot. Even though we loved how those looked, they were expensive since we needed at least 2 of them. We decided on a cheaper, similar version: a fake whiskey barrel, made out of plastic, which was only $20 each.

Then, I happened to spot that Westlake’s Memorial Day Sale included a plastic tub, larger than the fake barrels, that was on sale for $4.99. So, we scrapped the plan to get the nicer-looking flower pots and picked up two of the plastic tubs from Westlake’s. We can always replace them at the end of the season if the nicer ones go on sale, and we have to remember that it’s just a garden, not a fashion show.

(Ha! My dad used to say that when I was being especially girly about anything growing up…softball practice, getting ready for church, school…you name it. )

Anyway, Hubs removed the handles, first off, which made these guys look more like flower pots than drink tubs at a party.

Any idea what to use the handles for?

The next step was to cut out the bottoms, which would give the asparagus roots room to grow down into the soil. (We were planning to do this for whichever container we choose, another benefit of using the cheaper buckets since we were essentially going to destroy them.)

He was happy because he got to use his new SoniCrafter Tool.

Here’s our finished result (this is the bottom, so it’s basically a plastic tunnel shape now):

Then, I spray painted the tubs with Rustoleum’s Dark Walnut, leftover from giving the plastic planter from my parents a makeover. You can read about that here.

This was an unnecessary step considering they were already dark so they didn’t end up that different, but since one was a flat finish and the other was shiny (all they had at the store besides bright blue), it helped even that out, and it was only a few minutes to paint them.

After some drying time, I carried the tubs around back to set them in the ground.

Since we’re planning to remove sod from the entire garden bed area, I went ahead and stripped the sod from the space between the second two garden beds. It’s not a fun process, but it needed to be done. Unfortunately, we have several more hours of sod stripping ahead of us.

Then, we planted the asparagus we dug up from Wyatt’s parents’ land, after I painstakingly pulled out/trimmed as much of the grass out of it that I could. We’ll be weeding it forever, I’m sure.

We also planted some 2-year-old crowns we purchased, and even some seeds to cover all the bases and hopefully end up with a good stand.

I also added some wooden stakes as plant labels.

I made these from paint-stir sticks, of which we always seem to have an abundance, because I make sure to always grab plenty.

I gave them a quick coat of paint (leftover samples from choosing wall colors), which gave them a brighter, more fun look.

I added the labels with a water-proof permanent marker.

A clear coat of spray-on varnish as a final touch was the last step, and then I added them to the boxes.

Unfortunately, I forgot which seeds are exactly planted where, so I’ll have to adjust them later if my guesses are incorrect. Did you notice the radish sprouts? Exciting!

Oh, and the most interesting part of our weekend garden additions?

The pinwheels!

We’re hoping these will help deter the birds from nibbling on our harvest before we get to it. I’ll keep you posted as to how it works! It seems to have helped at least some since I harvested our first strawberry already, with no bird bites in it!

We also added some potted plants to our deck, as well as our painted patio furniture for the season.

Have you been making any progress outside? Are you planting a garden? Do you have suggestions for keeping birds away from berries? I’d love to hear about it or see pictures!