As the Garden Grows..

About a month ago, my husband and I finally took on the task of building the vegetabel garden we (mostly, I) have wanted for the last few years.  The good news, is we had already done all of hte legwork to determine how much of this or that we needed and the basic costs and locations for each of the items.  The bad news was I hadn't really thought about the plants or what we might grow. 
This is kind of my way of doing things.  I want something so I work toward getting it without considering all of the steps it might take.  Sometimes this leads me down a different path then where I originally thought I would go, sometimes this means it prabably takes twice as long as it should, and sometimes it acutally works.  Since my husband's "job" was the acutal building, we had worked out those details, the rest well, I'm guessing you can fgure out is taking twice as long as it probably should.
So, after a long week away from work, I arrived home to a slightly warmer weekend in early March and the process of building began.  In parallel I was also reading articles, ordering books and looking for seeds to start the actual gardening part. 
The good news is after purchasing everything, we were able to building the garden in a weekend (somehow I thought it would take longer than that).  Here are some pictures of the progress and how much the puppies helped.

Here are pictures of us building the frame for the raised garden out of cinderblocks.

Here is what the finished frame looks like.

Hunter keeping an eye on all of the supplies for us.

 

Adding all of the components: peat moss, shale and compost

Our convenient mixer (easier than with a shovel or hoe).

The completed base for the garden.  The grid is for square foot gardening.

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

WIth this 4' x 9' garden I will be growing 36 different types of crops.  Added to that all of the holes will have a combination of herbs and flowers to brighten the space up.  What is great about SFG is that you each square is designated for one plant so instead of growing a row of broccoli and getting 5-8 heads that mature at once, you only grow one or two in this process. 

So, as the month progressed, the seeds were ordered and planted indoors and out (we're experimenting)Hopefully at least 50% o fwhat we plant is fruiful.  This year is all about experimentation, what grows, what doesn't and my hope is to learn and do better next year.