Waiting for the Dirt

Things are finally moving along with the garden. We’ve finished up construction of the raised beds (there are now four 4-foot by 11-foot beds and four 2-foot by 11-foot) and got the gravel filled into the side paths. It’s really coming together now.

Finished garden beds

The real work will take place this weekend. The garden soil is scheduled to be delivered on Saturday. I expect it will take many hours and countless wheelbarrow loads to fill the beds with soil, peat moss, compost, and maple leaf mulch from last fall. I’m no stranger to a shovel but I know this is going to be a lot of work. I already warned my coworkers that I will probably be useless on Monday!

Raised beds waiting for soil

Once the soil is in place, I’m ready to plant. After quite a bit of consultation of gardening books, arranging, erasing and rearranging, I think I’ve finally come up with a layout for the garden. I have most of the seeds I want to plant and will be purchasing plants like tomatoes and peppers. I didn’t start any seeds early but I’ll probably try it next year. A majority of the seeds are left over from the small “surrogate” gardens I planted last year. With no space of my own, I worked garden beds at the museum at which I work and at my in-laws’ home. I’m really looking forward to having a nice, big garden of my own with all sorts of vegetables and herbs again.

Plotting and planning on my living room floor

The "final" garden plan

Once the garden beds are all filled and set, we’re going to have to get the fence in place. Last night, we watched two deer wander around our backyard. They are probably the young ones we saw when we first moved here. They are so used to life in the suburbs that they have very little fear of people. They’ve already nipped off some of the daylily leaves right next to my back porch as well as the newly sprouted hostas in front of the house. I fear it’s going to be a long battle against the deer. They are quite nice to watch, though. We’ve also been having a good time watching the rabbit that has been spending its evenings in our back yard. 

Bunny!