Breaking Ground

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted anything. We have been pretty busy around here! This year we are attempting our first large garden. I usually spend each winter planning a garden but spring comes and goes each year without my plan coming to fruition. Thanks to the "economy", we are making the effort to get the garden started. I planned a pretty large area for the garden but I think we may only plant part of it this year. We shall see. Here are some pictures of Hubby and the boys rolling up sod.

Here is what it looked like when we were finished pulling up sod. Are you wondering where our daughter is? She was lucky and had a dance performance that day!
Can you believe we did all that with our own little hands? Well, if you know us AT ALL, you know we DID NOT attempt to do it all by hand. We had good intentions though! That counts for something, right? After moving two rows from the one bed, we realized we would be killing ourselves to remove it all so we rented a sod cutter. $30 for 2 hours. We enlisted Hubby's brother to come help us and after about an hour trying to figure out the machine, they had to really work fast and furious to get it finished before time was up. Boy were we glad to have the work done so quickly.

We are going to be using the "Square Foot Garden" Method. The bed on the left was meant for all our "viney" plants. It measures about 20 feet long and 4 feet wide. I haven't decided whether or not to place wooden boxes in that area. To the right of the long bed we have placed four 8' x 4' beds with sod between them. I would like to, eventually, place fabric weed barrier and bark down between the beds but it will have to wait. I figure mowing is better than walking through mud and allowing weeds to grow between the beds. We will be adding a garden mix of soil from our local nursery to all the beds.

Here is a picture taken from the back porch. In the foreground you can see some of the vegetables and flowers I bought the other day.

I also bought some herbs for my herb garden shown in the picture below with our old dog Molly. We can't keep her out of the herbs because her path to the gate goes right through it so we are going to try to get her to avoid it by installing a 3 ft decorative fence along the patio, but if she thinks its a great place to sleep, then I don't know what to do. We will have to fence off the big garden area, too.Last night we had to bring in all of the plants because we had a cold front with freezing temperatures. Yes, that is a pumpkin on the table. We saved it since Halloween last year. I keep threatening to cook it but... I am always amazed that a pumpkin can last that long.


The paper cups are vegetables and flowers my kids planted. Cute, huh!
I have some great heirloom vegetables this year. The tray with the Styrofoam cups were grown by a young girl who goes to my sisters church. Tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cabbage, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin, and butternut squash. I hope I don't kill them!

Well, that covers what we have been trying to accomplish over the last week or so. I will try to keep posting any new garden developments.