A garden we will grow.

We've finally taken the first steps to growing our own vegetable garden! This is something we've wanted to do for many a moon, so it feels great to finally be making some progress.

First we had to clear a space for our garden. When we moved in to the new place, there already was an old, overrun garden in the yard. So we had to clear out some of the massive, invasive mint that was growing there.

This, as it turns out, was a much bigger job than anticipated. It really didn't want to be torn out; and the roots were so thick, and so deep. T got a real workout doing this job. 

The brick dividers were a pain to get out at first too. They were more than half way in the ground, and the dirt was very firmly packed against them. And they're heavy! Fortunately, the more she took out the looser the remaining bricks became; so it got easier as she went.

Justin worked on building a garden box so we can have a raised bed. He improvised a design based on some photos of gardens we'd seen and liked. We tried to find a video or template showing how to make it, but none of them looked quite the same. So we had to hatch our own plan!

B the builder helped with some of the manual labor, hammering in dowels. Most of the time she acted as the foreman of the "instruction site" and gave us orders. That was pretty funny. (At first.)

 C continued to watch movies after his friends left, in our impromptu outdoor theater.

Our Saturday project bled over into our Sunday, and since we had plans to go to the planetarium we had to work double time. So T started painting while J finished up the detail work. Looks pretty good if we do say so ourselves.

Lucky for us, our friends the Evans came over for dinner the next night and Morgan was able to help J move the box into its rightful place. That thing turned out to be heavy! No way could T help him move it once it was completed.

So now we just need to find dirt. A lot of it. And figure out what fall and winter veggies are best to plant now. Before you go saying we're too late in the season to start a garden, we beg to differ. According to our handy, dandy Sunset Gardening Guide we happen to live in a wonderful little pocket of the world that allows for year round produce. Lucky us!