This is a section of my back corner garden. It has my ghetto bean teepee that is half full of fava beans right now. The raised beds have several tomato cages in them that I use to try and keep the dog from running through them when she's chasing cats or squirrels. Ignore the mismatched fences- that's what you get when you have one neighbor who is willing to get a new fence, and another who doesn't. The neighbor who doesn't is fearful that taking out the fence would kill her ivy. If only that's all it took.
These are not weeds. This is actually arugula that I allowed to go to flower. On purpose. I swear.
These are our worm bins. I can't see spending 50-100 bucks on a fancy worm bin when Rubbermaid bins work just fine. Sure, they look a little white trash, but if they get ruined, I won't be heartbroken. Besides, the worms seem happy.
Yeah, that's a shoe. I don't think you can walk ten feet in my backyard without either coming across a shoe, a dog toy, or a pile of dog crap. These are all signs that the backyard gets USED. I don't think that's a bad thing.
Yes, that's a dead tree. I could yank it out, but it's serving another purpose as a trellis for pea's right now.
This is the future garden site. Yeah- it takes over half of my front yard. No, I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with this space. I'm not a designer, all I know is I have a few ideas of what I do want in this space (seating area, mostly edibles) and a few ideas of what I don't want (lawn!). Right now I have zero dollars to finish this project, so my neighbors will just get to look at dirt for a while. Maybe I'll spread manure all over it when I get paid next month. That will smell lovely.
Or maybe I'll stick some of these lovely tomato cages in there? I had thought I would have at least a small section of the front yard ready for vegetables, so I kind of committed my other raised beds in the backyard to garlic and shallots, and now I left no room for my 25 tomato plants. Guess they'll have to go in the front, whether it's ready or not.
Still in the front yard, you can see where I've taken out some of the old cement curbing to try and play around with the space. This will be a future patio. That big window will eventually be french doors, leading from the kitchen to our new kitchen garden. And I have ZERO dollars to spend on this project, so it will stay like this for quite some time. This has become our dog's favorite nap spot while I'm working in the front yard.
This is our front corner. Again, you can see I'm still thinking about what to do with the space. There is still some of the old cement curbing in place, mixed with additional pieces that I tore out from other areas while I try to figure out what to do with the space. My husband is really hoping I figure it out soon, but as far as I see it- it could look a lot worse.
This is the gate to the side yard. Eventually I'm thinking I'll install steps here but I haven't decided what kind. Maybe an arbor of some sort. Or maybe I'll leave it like it is. For the next five years, I'm guessing it will stay like it is.
In the meantime, I think my garden could look a lot worse. And for now, I like it just the way it is.
With this amount of lemons, I fill up my ice cube trays really fast, and shove them in the freezer. The next day I can pop them out of their trays and move to a ziploc bag and put back into the freezer for long term storage. After I used up my trays I was still left with about 2 gallons of lemon juice (anyone need highlights?!). At this point I start measuring into ziploc bags, 2 cups at a time. I label the bags with what it is and the date.
As I fill up the bags, I try to get rid of as much air as possible, and lay them all on a baking sheet. I use four bags per baking sheet, and stack the baking sheets on top of each other in the freezer. Once they freeze like this, take the baking sheets out, and stack the frozen bags in the freezer nicely. Viola! You'll now have a nice supply of lemon juice to use through out the year. 
But wait! You still have a bunch of lemon carcasses! What are you going to do with those?!
Throw them away! It's late, you're tired, you've done enough for today! Seriously, you should not put these in the compost bin, and you definitely should not put these in your worm bins (unless you WANT to melt the little dudes). The best place for these is now in your trash can, you've used and abused them enough. 
The star of Part One will be…..lemons. Shocker, right? There are soooo many different kinds to choose from. I personally grow Meyers lemons, cuz’, well, they are like the best lemon. Ever. Interesting factoid: a Meyer is not a true lemon; it’s actually a hybrid of a lemon and a mandarin. Did ya know that? Pretend that you didn’t and I just taught you something new. If I’m armed with 1.75 vodka, and 750ml of Everclear- I would then grab about 40 lemons. When I say lemons, I mean organic, homegrown- not the wax covered things you get at the grocery store. For this recipe you want the outside of lemons. Most pesticides that are applied to commercially grown citrus reside on the outside of the lemons. You want the oils off that lemon, so wax will be an unnecessary obstacle. Sure, you can use vegetable wash to remove that wax, but you’d also be removing some of those oils that you WANT. Even places like Whole Foods have started waxing their citrus, so if you can’t get them from someone’s garden, the farmers market will be your best option.
Another important item is your storage container. You want a LARGE glass container that you can seal. You need to think beyond the amount of liquor and lemon peels you’re going to add because in a few months you’re going to add more liquid, about 7 cups worth. The cheapest option is a large glass ice tea jug that doesn’t have a spout on it. You can usually find these pretty inexpensive towards the end of summer. If you can't find one that can be sealed, you'll have to MacGyver it with duct tape.
After washing and drying your lemons, use a potato peeler to remove the peels off the lemons. A nicer potato peeler works best, especially one with a decent handle (I use an OXO brand one), because you’re going to be peeling for quite some time. The most important information I can give you is to watch out for pith! Pith is the white part under the peel, and it can ruin an entire batch of limoncello. Pith is not your friend. For this reason alone I do not zest the peel, you are far more likely to get pith if you zest than if you do a peel-then-scrape method. The first few times I made limoncello I was lucky, but then bam, my last batch of the season last year I had too much in my limoncello and I basically wasted about 50 dollars in liquor, and 3 months of work. That’s why I now made the process even more difficult and scrape the pith off the back of each and every peel. That’s why I also enlist the help of friends to assist me in peeling and scraping because otherwise it would take me ALL. FRICKIN’. DAY. The peel on the left in the picture below is what you're going for, the peel on the right is not.
And here's part of what we didn't get to today....bummer! 
Why didn't I grab these? Because they are way up high and require me to drag the ladder out. Normally I would do it but I was in a lazy mood, and did I mention it was frickin cold outside? I even took advantage of free child labor and got a few minutes of help from my daughter- until she got really cold and cranky and I forced her to go inside and play video games like a real kid (just kidding...sort of....).
So now you're probably wondering what we're doing with all of this citrus, right? Well, you'll have to come back here tomorrow to find out!
