The lawn outside of our little four-plex condo building was postage stamp size–maybe, 12' x 14' or so, plus a narrow parking strip.

I never thought about it much, as it was rather useless. No one ever hung out on it for picnics, people watching, etc. And it was way to small to play on.

But recently, the condo association budget started to hurt, and it didn't take much to realize that we were spending an inordinate amount of money on landscaping. And the reason was: lawn care. It cost a lot of money to have someone come out to mow the lawn. And we got nothing out of it!

So we finally decided to take matters into our own hands. Last weekend Mary and I spent that beautiful Sunday (remember what that was like?) tearing out the lawn in 1'x1' patches. The next day we posted the remaining sod on craigslist and found an immediate taker, who came Tuesday morning to pick it up. I'm skeptical it will make a new lawn again, but I wish him the best, since he took it off our hands! (And thanks to Kevin Freitas for some tips on the lawn removal from his own project).

This weekend we went to Garden Sphere in Proctor and bought some new plants. Our qualifications: low maintenance and edible.

So we've planted 3 rosemary bushes, 4 rhubarb plants, and 3 blueberry bushes. They're small now, but some day they'll grow into a nice little garden. We'll walk out the front door and grab a couple blueberries, or Mary can head outside for fresh rhubarb to make a rhubarb crisp, or I can grab some rosemary for a loaf of bread …

That's the goal! We'll probably plant some strawberries this winter as ground cover too.

Next step: putting some flagstones in the parking strip. But I'm feeling very good about our new garden that everyone in the building can enjoy.