Rebuild Time

The garden at the very start of the rebuild.

We first built our little garden way back in 2015. We had just moved into our new house the summer before and we transformed the old broken-down above-ground pool in the back yard into my rendition of a Shaker-style garden. (Read about the building process here, here, and here.) Well, nine years have passed and the plywood on the beds is falling apart, the fence has gone wavy, and the gate is held together with twine. So, it's rebuild time!

My husband found some metal garden beds online for a good price so we ordered six of them - enough to redo half the garden. We decided to wait on the other half because I haven't decided how to deal with the established asparagus and herb beds yet. The new beds arrive a few days later in flat packages and then the work began.

Production begins.

He took on the production of the beds and I lightly supervised. They seemed to go together fairly easily and while they are rather light-duty, they are as expected for the cost. In a couple of evenings after work, he got all six assembled and ready to be put into place.

New beds ready to go.

There were four old wooden beds to be removed. Two of them measured 11 feet by 4 feet and two more were 11 feet by 2 feet. That's 132 square feet of space filled  probably 8 to 10 inches deep with soil that all needed to be moved so that we could put in the new metal beds. 

So much dirt to move.

My husband got started with the shoveling while I was at work and I jumped in during two of my vacation days. We shoveled soil from one bed onto the others, removed the gravel that made paths between the beds, then tore out the wooden boards. 

Out with the old and ready for the new.

We shoveled and shoveled and hoed and raked and rested and got back to it as we watched the forecast for incoming rain. We were really lucky to get a couple of solid days with glorious spring weather in which to work.

More than halfway there.

It was a multi-day project with plenty of aches and pains and bruises to go around but I actually really enjoyed the work. Not that I'm anxious to do it again right away, but I don't dread the second half of the project next year.

All done!

Though we're finished replacing half the beds, as planned, there's still more to do this season. We're going to re-do the fence next, probably with a new gate. The wooden walkway is still nicely solid, though, and will stay as it is for many years to come. 

Rhubarb still a little droopy from the transplant.

Now it's time to turn my attention to the plants. During the earth-moving process, I split up our rhubarb and moved half of it outside the garden. I also weeded the asparagus bed and had my first harvest of chives. I hope to get the hardier seeds into the ground this weekend (though I haven't worked out an actual plan yet) and there's still a good month and some days before the more delicate veg gets planted. I'm excited to get things started!

Toad!

And, as always, there was at least one animal involved in our goings-on. I uncovered this little toad in a shovel of gravel. I don't think I hurt him but he wasn't thrilled with the paparazzi treatment.