Poolside garden project

Well its spring time and my son (Myles) and I decided it was time to build a small garden. Around three years ago I bought one of those plastic landscape ponds, ever since then it has been sitting around on my deck waiting to be installed. The pond itself is a 300 gallon; it came to me in a dream to fill it with dirt instead of water.

My boy and I got started early Saturday morning a week ago; Myles started by tighten up the air chuck on the nail gun. I have to admit the nail gun was almost as big as my boy. Ha-ha.

Next step was to nail down the boards where the pond was to be placed; Myles got the hang of it very quick and made short work of it.

Next step we needed to drill some one inch drain holes; again Myles was up to the job, he first drilled holes in the bottom then went to work on the sides. He did an amazing job.

The next step you ask; well Myles abandon his dad and went to the front yard to play some baseball. Ha-ha. He had done a good job…I think the heavy nail gun took it out of him.

Now it was my turn to work; I first built the frame then added braces due to the odd shape of the pool.

Then a test fitting of the pool

Then I placed the pool back into place and did a test fit of the 8 foot 2” x 12” treated board. I had to use 2 x 12’s to cover the odd shape of the pool; once I laid a board on top I would lay on my back in the pool and trace the shape of the pool on the bottom side of the board.

Then it was time to get out the jig saw; here is a little back ground story of the jig saw I was working on another project a few years ago (the deck) and I burn up my other jig saw and I only had one board left to cut and to make matter worse it was late in the day and a Sunday. So at the time of day I just went to Wal-Mart to get a cheap jig saw to finish the job until I had time to go to Lowes and get a better one. When I got to the store there was a Black and Decker jig saw for 20 dollars, so I picked it up and was walking out to pay…then I saw it a no name jig saw for…get this its price…six dollars. I laughed to myself and picked it up, figuring it would last at least long enough to finish the one cut I had left…well to make a long story short; I’m still using the same cheap jig saw three years later…go figure. Ha-ha.

Next step was to finish up the crazy cuts and nail them to the top.

Then I stared on the sides, I used six foot dog eared boards (fence boards) cut into 16” boards

Then came the trim boards around the top

It ended up looking like a hot tub once done.

Now it was time for the dirt, my Pop sprung for the dirt, we ended up getting it from Wal-Mart too. It cost $ 1.20 a bag; we ended up getting 60 bags somewhere around 70 dollars. So if you ever ask your self what 2400 pounds of dirt looks like in bags…well here it is…

Next was painful I had to carry 60 bags of dirt from the driveway to the pool and cut open and dump each bag. It’s amazing how everyone has something else to do when lifting is done…ha-ha.

Once I got it mostly full I went back to Wal-Mart and the nursery and picked up the plants and some high dollar dirt to finish off the pond.

Next I planted the plants

Here is the finished garden…after the garden is over I plan on planting dwarf fruit trees in the pond next.

I also planted some more veggies in some pots that will go into another planter on my deck…more on that later.