FARMINGTON – Bev Oliver walked into one of her outdoor potting areas Thursday and put a few items on the counter before she picked a small-handled garden prong to weed one of her many gardens.

“Believe it or not, I really like to weed, and most of my family tells me I’m crazy but I don’t care. I like to have fun,” Oliver said.

At first glance, it looks like you’re in a kitchen area. A sink is sunk in the counter top, a red hand-pump beside it. Look a little closer and the pump is not hooked up and neither is the sink. Oliver really uses it to pot her plants and the potting soil is kept in an old gas grill to the side, painted green with decals on it.

Everything old gets turned into something new, she said, as she looked into a closed-in area at her chickens through a window. They had left her a present of two fresh eggs.

On the wall, an old pocketbook has become a new plant holder. Old shoes and boots have plants growing out of them. Grain bags serve as curtains to the chicken quarters. An old grinding wheel sits in a stand-alone window box. A large satellite dish is an umbrella over a picnic bench.

“We don’t throw anything away here. People bring me their old junk and I make something out of it,” Oliver said.

Oliver continued walking around her property on Holley Road in Farmington, which was named “Yard of the Month” for July. The four-month event is sponsored by Rocky Hill Landscape and Nursery in Wilton and the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce.

Oliver picks up ideas at different places, like the Bangor Flower Show or a visit to Bar Harbor. She goes home and makes one in her own design.

A rock has become a turtle, a piece of dried mortar a planter.

“Nature is beautiful. You cannot beat it, so you might as well use it,” she said.

A hydrangea that started off as a 6-inch root winds itself around an old maple tree and up into a bird house.

Mirrors are featured throughout the yard, creating art in reflections. “I love mirrors. You see everything twice,” she said.

Oliver started with one hosta and now has thousands throughout her yard.

She also has high-bush blueberries and hardy kiwis, fairy houses and gardens outlined by rocks.

In an area behind what she refers to as her hosta nursery, she composts.

She dug her hand into the pile and pulled out dirt.

“This is black gold. Isn’t it wonderful,” she said.

Some people turn their compost often, she doesn’t. She lets it sit for a year.

“I let Mother Nature do it. She has more time than me,” Oliver said.

Deer and moose silhouettes keep the animals out during the summer months. But once they are taken up, the animals return.

She walked over to a corner on her land.

“This is where I’m playing right now,” she said. “Hostas and ferns and nature at its best.”

She made a dry creek bed out of small rocks she collected.

The hours she puts into the yard don’t bother her.

“I just have too much fun,” she said. “It keeps me busy. I don’t have trouble sleeping at night.”