Thursday, January 23, 2014

Too Much Stuff for Your Garden

One of the defining features of post-war American life is stuff. Stuff for every need and desire you have ever entertained, all of it purchased affordably and conveniently – especially with the Internet now responding to our every click and thought! You have more clothes than you need, more furniture than there is room for, more books than you will ever read, and more technology heaped in a shrine around your television than you have remote controls for.

This kind of prosperity is great, but there are consequences for our massive amount of stuff – among them, a serious lack of space. The more stuff we get, the more we have to move other stuff out of the way, but where is all of our old stuff to go?! It’s a dilemma that every homeowner is faced with as the years go by and more and more stuff piles up around the house. Inevitably, that stuff finds its way into corners and closets and then, eventually, the garage.

Beyond the Garage 

Home Gardening
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The garage is, for many people, the last resting place of all kinds of stuff, but it doesn’t have to be, especially for that stuff which you need to use on a regular basis. Take, for example, the popular pastime of gardening. Plenty of homeowners indulge in gardening, and today it’s become quite a popular thing to do with your property as concerns over the quality and health of food have come into the media. Growing your own fruits and vegetables means that you can be certain they have not been genetically modified or tainted in some way – plus, food from your garden is always more fresh and considerably tastier than food from a supermarket.

 But if you’re a true gardening enthusiast, you’ve no doubt collected quite a set of tools for your garden by now. Doubling and tripling up on those tools probably wasn’t a bad idea either; after all, what if something breaks or is lost? You need to have a replacement on hand, and perhaps a replacement for the replacement! Then there are the bags of gravel, birdseed, fertilizer, and planet seeds that you’re saving for the next planting season. All of this and more can find its way into your garage, cluttering everything up and often becoming lost, necessitating that you go out and spend money to replace something that you absolutely, positively know is somewhere in your home. The solution is simple and straightforward: create a space dedicated to storing your gardening tools and supplies. For some people, a corner of the garage, cleared out and properly cared for, is sufficient. If you have a truly substantial gardening arsenal, however, then a shed that can store all of those tools and keep them organized and easy to access is the best and most efficient answer to your “stuff” problem.













The Where, Why, and What of Your Shed 

A garden shed can take many forms, and it can go in a number of places on your property. A gardening shed near your home makes it a kind of “second garage,” which may be convenient; sometimes, you want your shed far away from your home so that you have two convenient locations to bring your tools and supplies. The best place for your shed is as close as possible to your garden, though. Some people even design their garden space around the shed, making it the centerpiece of the garden, or at least building a walkway to and from the shed that runs throughout the garden.

The look of the garden shed can vary as well. The color scheme is obviously up to you – there is plenty of paint out there that can stand up to the weather and protect the wood so that your shed lasts as long as your garden. Some garden sheds include a garage door, however, so that tractors can be stored there and large amounts of supplies can be easily moved in and out of it. Other sheds are a little smaller in size and have only a door and a window or two.

A prefabricated shed is, obviously, the least labor-intensive way to get a shed as quickly as possible onto your property. Spring is right around the corner, which means you’ll be back in your garden in no time. Starting the season without a shed means you’ll be wrangling with all of your gardening stuff all over again – head off that whole boondoggle with a shed!

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