the garden

Jack is loving the sunshine as much as I do

It is finally my favorite time of year...the first day of spring was yesterday. Unfortunately, I spent it home with pink eye. Really bad pink eye. It is really disgusting. I am home again today. But, back to happy stuff. It is spring time. Spring time is great and the best part is that it leads to summer time, which is just as great.

Two garden beds with a really cool birdhouse made by Johnpaul's dad

Last week/weekend we worked and worked in the yard to get my garden space ready. I am so happy! We had to dig out the grass. The grass in our yard has been there since 1950. It is full of roots and rocks. It was a little work. Johnpaul is so amazing. He did most of it for me while I cooked dinner or was at school. We made two 12x4 beds. This is the first picture of them. They aren't ready yet!

Raking and rototilling up the garden

The next step was to rototill up the hard soil. Johnpaul used a rototiller that we borrowed from my wonderful Grandma Doris (she is the garden queen.) I raked and gathered big old roots and stones from the ground to be placed elsewhere. As you can see, it wasn't exactly warm here that day.

Look at how muddy it was! Johnpaul's feet were covered by the sloppy mud

Top Soil

Next we added soil and steer manure so our little vegetables would love where they are living. Then Johnpaul mixed it all up with the rototiller.

Square foot dividers for my square foot garden

In my garden this year I am going to grow one bed just like I always would, cramming as much in it as possible and seeing what I get out of it. I am going to try a new method in the other garden. It is called square foot gardening. I know it is actually not new, but it is new to me. You split your bed up into one foot squares and plant according to spacing and harvest time. So, a tomato plant when mature needs an entire square to itself, but in the early days you can use the outer parts of the box for lettuce or another quick, early harvest food. Do you see what I mean? I will be posting more about it as my garden grows.

Early Crop Seeds

I planted my early, cold weather crops on Saturday while Johnpaul was sleeping. The early ones in the ground are lettuce, peas, spinach, onions and carrots. I am so proud of myself because I think these are the earliest seeds that I have ever planted. Usually it is at least spring break before I get them in the ground.

xoxo - stephanie