I Saved My Son’s Summer Camp with Four Boards from Home Depot

I moved into this house the year Miles learned to walk.

The landlord pointed at the patch of bare dirt out back and said, “Soil’s no good, but at least you’ve got space.” I remember thinking, someday I’ll get him one of those little plastic pools. He can splash around back here in the summer.

That was seven years ago.

The pool is long gone—squirrels chewed through the liner. Now the backyard is just a holding pen for stuff the previous renters left behind: a half bag of cement, a rusted grill, and a pair of pink gardening gloves I bought at Target in 2021, tags still on, size small.

My name is Leah. I’m 36. I work in advertising, mid-level, at an agency in downtown Cleveland.

Most days blur together like the same B-roll playing on a loop: alarm at 5:50, peanut butter sandwich for Miles, out the door by 6:40. Twenty-minute drive to the train station, forty-five minutes on the express, then a shuttle to the office. Home again by 7:20, give or take. Miles is already done with his homework at the afterschool program, curled up on the couch watching Cosmos.

The half-gallon of milk in the fridge went bad yesterday. I sniffed it. Decided it could last another day.

Then my phone buzzed—an email from the afterschool program:

“2025 NASA Youth Space Camp · Cleveland — Registration closes May 15. Program fee: $575.”

I flipped the phone face-down on the kitchen table.

The pantry door doesn’t quite shut. Through the gap I could see the corner of those pink gloves, still waiting.

I bought them thinking, I have a backyard now. How hard can it be?

Back then I thought if you put seeds in the ground, they just grow.

Same way I thought if you work hard enough, things just get easier.

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I planted those tomato seedlings on Memorial Day weekend last year.

I actually took the day off. Three hours on my knees in the May sun, crumbling the packed dirt with a dish sponge because I didn’t own a trowel. Old Man Dan from next door walked by with his dog, stood at the fence for a long time, and finally said, “Your soil’s off. Too lean.”

I didn’t ask what lean meant.

Two weeks later, all seventeen seedlings were laid flat along the rim of the planter, stems thin as dental floss.

I pulled them out one by one. The planter box went behind the rusted grill. The gloves went back in the pantry.

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The thing that really cracked me open happened three Saturdays ago.

Spring break. I took Miles to Heinens for lunch meat. He stopped at the cold case and stood there, both hands flat on the glass.

“Mom,” he said quietly. “Why are these blueberries black?”

“Those are organic,” I said. The tag read $6.99 per 170g. “...Maybe the darker ones are sweeter.”

He didn’t ask, Can we get them?

He just pressed his forehead against the glass and counted. Softly, like it was a game.

“One, two, three … eleven.”

That’s how many were in the box.

He counted all eleven, then turned away and put his hands back on the shopping cart.

That night, after he fell asleep, I pulled the camp registration form out of my wallet. I’d folded it into a small square and tucked it behind my driver’s license, next to the worn edges of the plastic sleeve.

$575.

I folded it again and slid it back in.

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I started searching online for side hustles.

Everything I found just made me more tired.

Flip secondhand clothes — my closet is all work blouses and ripped jeans. Freelance writing — I already stare at a screen all day. Drive for Uber — my 2014 Civic just had the transmission replaced.

Then I opened Nextdoor.

A guy three streets over had posted three photos.

First photo: four old boards nailed into a square, sitting on bare grass.

Second photo: the same square, filled with dark soil.

Third photo: the square overflowing with green lettuce, so thick you couldn’t see the dirt.

His caption: “Built this in one weekend using a guide I found. Haven’t bought lettuce since.”

Top comment: “+1. Lazy man’s gardening. Best $40 I ever spent.”

Second comment had a link: The Self-Sufficient Backyard.

I clicked.

$52.62.

That’s a week and a half of groceries for us.

I pulled the folded square from behind my license again.

$575.

If I threw away forty bucks on this, I thought, we just don’t go anywhere this summer. Not even Cedar Point.

It was 1:22 a.m. The living room was dark except for the blue glow of my laptop screen.

My thumb hovered over the confirm button for maybe fifteen seconds.

Then I pressed it.

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Three days later, the PDF landed in my inbox.

Miles was asleep. I sat on the back steps in the dark, phone in hand, swatting mosquitoes, reading.

This guide wasn’t trying to turn me into a farmer.

It was teaching me how to trick the dirt.

Like the no-dig bed.

You don’t till. You don’t even need a shovel. You lay down wet cardboard—it kills the grass, smothers the weeds, rots right into the soil. Worms come up from below and do the tilling for you.

Then you put your wooden frame on top. Fill it with one bag of cheap compost and one bag of coconut coir.

Tools: a screwdriver. Time: fifteen minutes.

Saturday morning, I took Miles to Home Depot.

He spotted a $39 Lego space shuttle in the toy aisle. I said, “Today we’re building our own shuttle.” His eyes went wide.

We bought four 2x4 pine boards. Fourteen bucks. The cashier asked if we wanted them cut. I said no—my son knows multiplication.

Miles carried those boards in the cart all the way home, hugging them like treasure.

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Wednesday night, I came home late from work and flipped on the porch light.

And there it was.

A crack in the soil. Tiny—barely big enough for a fingernail.

But coming through that crack were two seed leaves, so small I had to squat down and squint.

I stayed there a long time.

Seven years in this house, and I’d never seen anything I planted actually grow.

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For the next three weeks, I only planted the three things at the top of the guide’s “low-maintenance” list: lettuce, cherry radishes, basil.

All ready in 25 days.

The guide said: “For people who work full-time, positive reinforcement is 10,000 times more important than total yield.”

Day 21, I cut my first handful of basil.

That night, Miles ate two plates of pasta. He laid the basil leaves one by one on the sauce, like he was setting a table.

“Mom,” he said, “I grew this.”

“You picked the boards,” I said.

He grinned. That gap between his baby teeth.

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That month, I did the math.

March: $640 on groceries.

April: $426.

The $214 I saved covered the first deposit for camp.

The guide has a chapter called: “Turn Your Backyard Greens into Gas Money.”

I never thought I’d sell vegetables. But last month, I posted a photo in the neighborhood Facebook group—a little basket of arugula, a bunch of mint. “Homegrown, $3 each, porch pickup.”

Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang.

It was the pregnant woman from across the street. “I’ve been so nauseous,” she said. “Mint is the only thing that helps. The grocery store charges $4 for eight leaves. This is … this is so much.”

I made $21 that night.

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Week five, I planted pole beans. The guide has plans for a vertical trellis made from an old picture frame.

Miles found a Lego baseplate and screwed it onto the wood. We ran twine up and down. The bean tendrils found their own way.

Yesterday morning, he stood at the back door and said, “Mom, our yard looks different.”

It used to be a cement bag, dead tomatoes, a squirrel-chewed pool.

Now it’s three tiers of green: lettuce low, arugula middle, and at the top, bean vines winding up Miles’s Lego space tower, dotted with small purple flowers.

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Last night, I opened the envelope.

$575. I counted it twice.

Forty-seven dollars of it was from vegetables I sold.

A hundred seventy-two was money I didn’t spend on groceries.

The rest was Tuesday and Wednesday overtime, one late-night hour at a time.

I opened the camp registration page. Typed in Miles’s name. My credit card number.

This time my thumb didn’t hover.

The screen said REGISTRATION CONFIRMED.

The back door squeaked.

“Mom? What’s for dinner?”

I opened the fridge.

No expired milk. No limp celery.

A jar of pickled radishes I made myself, sliced thin, floating in ice water.

On top of the fridge, a small basket of arugula for the neighbor.

“Salad,” I said. “My treat.”

He blinked. Then he smiled—that gap-toothed, seven-year-old smile.

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Someday, when Miles looks back on this spring, he probably won’t remember the robotics curriculum at NASA camp.

He’ll remember the Saturday morning at Home Depot, sitting in the shopping cart, holding four boards across his lap.

He’ll remember the Lego tower he built, wrapped green with bean vines.

And he’ll remember standing at the back door one evening, looking at the patch of dirt that used to be nothing, and saying:

“Mom, our yard grows stuff now.”

What he didn’t say—but what I saw in his eyes—was this:

So do we.

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If you live in an old rental with a patch of dirt out back that you’ve been ignoring;

If you’ve ever stood in front of a grocery store cooler and pretended you don’t like raspberries;

If you just want—one small thing—that you can count on when prices keep climbing—

This is the guide I bought at 1:22 a.m., sitting alone in the blue light of my laptop screen:

👉 Click here for The Self-Sufficient Backyard

It’s not about moving off the grid. It’s about building one small square of it, right where you already are.

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(Note: This story was created with the assistance of AI, then edited and polished by the author to ensure personal experience and accuracy.)

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