This Year's Garden

So in years past, my garden has looked like this:


Now, there's nothing wrong with having a garden built like that in a normal place, but you wouldn't believe the weed issues I have here! As far as I can tell, the area I'm using as a garden has never been anything but a weed patch, and as a result, getting rid of all the weeds, with their seeds everywhere in the soil, and their runners, and however else they reproduce, was practically impossible. It didn't seem to matter how many times I sprayed, they just wouldn't die. Add to that our bad soil, and I was ready to try something new this year.

After researching things a bit, I decided I wanted to do some boxes. I thought at first I'd do the square foot gardening method, but I don't need as much produce as I feel like that would actually produce. Plus, I'm starting way late this year, and I'm just not confident enough that my plants will mature quickly enough to justify purchasing all the plants that method would require. So, for this year at least, I just planted the plants that I would like the produce from.

For the last few days, my garden has been pretty much all I've been working on. I bought 2 x 6's and had them chopped down to be 8 ftrs and 3 ftrs, then used those to build my boxes (my dad and Cory actually did most of this work, but only because there were only 2 hammers. I did hammer in one nail... :)). I placed the boxes, and then Jake pounded in my stakes (because he likes to use a sledge hammer...). Then I found soil and mulch and had it delivered to my house--5 cubic yards worth of materials, if you're wondering. That's a LOT, I promise. I've spent the last two days moving dirt and mulch while my kids ran around the yard and generally played in the dirt. I am so impressed with how well they've done outside--makes me want to fence off my yard so they can just go play out there all the time. Maybe some day... Anyway. Without further ado, here is my beautiful new garden--I'm so excited about it!



The pile of dirt left over... to be used in a flower bed in the back yard, among other things, I guess...


How the girls entertained themselves:


and the remains of where the mulch was...


So glad it's done, the garden's in, and I am able enough to do this. I really, really love accomplishing such a project, and I can't get over how beautiful I think it is.