Prelude to the Extra Credit. (or How I Spent my Summer Vacation)

I have been thinking about having a decent vegetable garden for many years. I don't know the first thing about gardening except you have to weed it. For a long time we had a garden in a terrible and shady inherited spot near our garage. We got bitter lettuce and deformed carrots out of it until I decided it wasn't my responsibility and my husband could take care of it. Well, that didn't work out too well and the area became a grassy mound. It's the scruffy bit on the left, at the back.

This picture is from June of 2008. We didn't have a drought last year.

Our back yard faces south--so we have wonderful exposure. I really don't know why someone decided to put it there. I wanted to put the garden closer to the house (and hose) and in a better place for sun. But first, this sidewalk would have to come out.

(Picture taken in April, 2009. Yes, that's snow in the shadows.)

As you can see, no loss really. What you can't see is a) the gate doesn't work very well and my husband has given up on keeping it square year after year. It's an "emergency exit only."

Secondly, there's a great dip where we had our old drain pipe dug up and removed many summers ago. The fellows who did it carted away too much of our soil--we had to ask them to bring some back! They did, but after a few years, when all had settled, we could easily see it wasn't enough. So, there was a dangerous valley in the sidewalk right at the front and I would trip while walking on it. Often. So, I wasn't too interested in keeping this sidewalk: and it was a perfect place for a few raised beds. I decided we'd do three this year--and eventually work up to four.



We got the sidewalk out by mid-May and the forms built, then we promptly ran out of funds. We needed dirt. Lots of dirt and we just couldn't afford it.

We had another problem too.
Remember this?



This was all the stuff left over from last year's landscaping efforts. There's concrete rubble, and cedar bush and tree bits. There's also some really inexpensive brick we bought at a salvage place. We wanted to take it to the dump: (well, except for the brick, of course) but we couldn't figure out how to get it there. We needed a hitch (which we planned to get for the camper trailer anyway) and a cargo trailer which we really didn't want to pay for--even to rent. And my husband really didn't want to pay the dumping fees, either.

And then the Jeep had its accident.


We did come up with a solution for our lack of dirt and too much rubble problem, but not in time to plant anything like a garden.

So, this evening, I ran out to take pictures of where we are, now, and what will be available for planting next spring. We may get one more form built before the snow flies but now need a roof rack (which has been unavailable from Chrysler since July).


(Above: you can easily see where the old sidewalk had been. That's alfalfa growing in the partially assembled form.

Below: the view straight on. The dip was right under the hose reel and you can see where it carries out into the yard.)



I'm not holding my breath. The furnace came on for the first time today.