Our garden site plan includes several projects that we’ll be working on in the coming weeks.

• Build 2 2′ x 6′ planter beds
• Paint planter beds with clear coat
• Paint picket fence…white! 🙂
• Plant
• Construct planter bed shade covers
• Install chalkboards
• Build arbor

Pa Charlie (my dad) suggested planter beds as an easy way to get started, so Mike will build two of them for our garden. We will paint the planter beds with a clear coat to seal them.

I’ve always dreamed of a home with a white picket fence, but that’s not an option for us at this point. For now, Mike suggested we paint the garden’s picket fence white. 🙂 Mike also plans on building an arbor for outside our garden gate. We’re going to paint the arbor to match the picket fence and plant vines to twine through the trellises.

Our garden location gets full, Texas sun, and we are a little concerned about that. Mike devised a plan to construct shade covers for the planter beds using garden fabric that will block out about 30% of the sun’s light transmission.

We’ll begin planting once we’re past the average last frost for our area, which is around mid-March. If the weather appears to be in a warming trend, we’ll plant as soon as the planter beds are finished.

I want to mount two chalkboards to the back fence for the kids to use. The purpose is two-fold: fun and learning. I also want to place a kid-sized table and two chairs near the chalkboard for play, work, and kids’ projects.