Mavis Mail – Heather from Massachusetts Checks In with Her Latest Gardening Projects

A big THANK YOU to everyone who has sent in their photographs and stories. I hope by sharing other people’s pictures and stories here on One Hundred Dollars a Month we can all find unique ways to save, show off our chickens and have a rock star gardens. Keep them coming!

Hello all – Heather from MA here… it’s been a while. And boy have we done a lot since the last post. In fact, when Mavis posted that post, we were not even thinking of moving at all. BAM, two months later, and we’ve got the FOR SALE sign in the yard!

With our kids creeping into their last years of high school and both of us looking at their High School graduation finish lines – we’ve solidly thrown ourselves into prepping for our empty nesting years. The real estate market has gone crazy in our little town (within commuting distance to Boston) so we sold the big house while the getting was good. We moved into a fixer-upper for the last two years while the kids are finishing up high school in the hopes of turning a dollar after we fix it up a bit, then when our last kid graduates…. we’re moving out of MA.

The fixer-upper is what we jokingly call a “lite fixer-upper”, as we have lots of muscle but not a ton of time or professional skills to take on too much so we had to be careful to choose a home we could manage. So we found a little ranch. It definitely forced us to purge, purge, purge as we went from a 3 level colonial to a 1 level raised ranch. I love it because it’s a size I can actually keep clean, and the kids are always close. Honestly, we should have stayed small from the start!

It was brutal giving up my garden as I’d just established another 10 blueberry bushes, my raspberries started mass producing, and my strawberries were finally acting out my vision of edible ground cover (I HATE mulching).

On the other hand, the family we sold the house to has jumped in with both feet and I’m strangely proud of them for learning so fast (they came from the city, to a townhouse, to my suburban mini-farm) enjoying and taking advantage of all.that.produce! I’ve been back over to the old house for a bit of tutoring (because I just can’t help myself) to show them how to split plants, prune, prep, etc. They always send me away with plants and eggs which is a win-win for both of us!

Back to the new house, the realtor said “If you choose a house on a main road, the backyard HAS got to be an oasis”. Well, first there were like three houses to choose from (remember the market? Crazy), and secondly… that sounds like a challenge. Roger. I love a good challenge.

So I dug up a mini trailer-full of plants from my beautiful garden, and brought them with me – because honestly, I’m not leaving my plants. That’s not weird right?

Remember how I said “lite fixer-upper”? Well, it was dirty, really dirty. Both the yard and the inside of the house. We moved in at the end of July and went to work. I filled a dumpster with junk from the house and yard and we soon had the house spotless. I painted every corner. Every.Corner! It now looks light, airy, and a bit cottage’y with the white beams and vaulted ceilings. It’s wicked cute.

The outside is still a project but I started in the fall by removing an old fire pit (filled with nails, glass, rocks, bricks, and painted wood), pulled three overgrown rhododendrons, planted some perennials, a few raspberry canes, my lavender, and cleared 16 trees and ground 8 stumps within the rock wall space to make the yard look like a yard. With only a few fall months, one full season, and a few spring months to establish landscaping before we put it back on the market, I had to get going right away!

For curb appeal, we hung a flag (a must), created more parking for the teenager’s cars, and installed new mailboxes.

We are in the process of adding a forsythia living fence along the road, but it’s only half planted so I don’t have photos yet. Let me tell you about the beauty of a renting a towable-auger (from HD)…. worth.every.cent!!!

My son cut down a hickory tree for me near the driveway. If you’ve never had a nut tree, it is AMAZING how much it produces. I didn’t like it because it spit barrels and barrels of nuts all over the yard, driveway, and our cars. Instead, I turned it into this wicked cute plant hanger. Our driveway is shared by two houses and the UPS/FedEX/Mailman/delivery guy is forever confused on which house is which, so the numbers on the stump should help.

Lastly, we had a LOT of wood in the yard. Wood piles here there and everywhere from the previous owners. We cut down 16 trees and ground 8 stumps in the backyard when we moved in so we had the tree company save a few hardwoods for us. Also, we had 3 or 4 wicked storms this winter and had two trees topple over – one of which was a hardwood. Luckily I was able to borrow a splitter from a friend and the HH and I split a small hill of wood. Now to stack, stack, stack.

And of course, I installed a garden. My goal was to spend as little money as possible on the garden by using items I was able to source from the yard (they never cleaned anything up so it was a bit of a treasure trove with the right imagination), free plants from friends who were splitting theirs, plants from our new friends in our old house, and plants grown from winter sowing buckets. But I’ll have to tell you about that in another post.

~ Heather

More blog posts from my buddy Heather in Massachusetts

If you would like to have your garden, chicken coop, pantry or something you’ve made featured on One Hundred Dollars a Month, here’s what I’m looking for:

• Your Garden Pictures and Tips – I’d especially like to see your garden set ups, growing areas, and know if you are starting seeds indoors this year. If so,  show me some picture of how you are going about it.
• Your Pantry Pics – Submit at least 5 HIGH QUALITY pictures of your pantry/fridge/cabinets, as well as a short blurb {at the very least} about you and your food habits.
• Your Chicken and Chicken Related Stories – Coops, Chicks, Hen’s, Roosters, Eggs, you name it. If it clucks, send us some pictures to share with the world.
• Cool Arts & Crafts – Made from your very own hands with detailed {and well photographed} pictures and instructions.
• Your pictures and stories about your pets. The more pictures and details the better.
• Garage Sale, Thrift Store and Dumpster Diving pictures and the stories behind the treasures you found including how much you paid for them.

You’ll need to send in a Minimum of 5 HIGH QUALITY pictures and the stories to go along with those pictures. Please do not send in a couple of grainy photos and a sentence about them. I can’t post that. It doesn’t make for an interesting or informative story.

If I feature your pictures and the stories behind them on One Hundred Dollars a Month, I will send you a $20.00 gift card to the greatest store in the world: Amazon.com. You can send your submissions to me at onehundreddollarsamonth @ gmail.com {spaces removed}and be sure and put Mavis Mail in the subject line. Thank you. I’m looking forward to your submissions.

Go HERE for the official rules.