The Garden: Part 1

One of the many joys of living in Virginia is that we can grow a garden.  Things actually grow here.  Sure, technically things grow in Texas, but it takes so much work and money and stress that it's hardly worth it.  Last year we paid like .10 for a couple packets of veggies at a thrift store, did zero to the dirt and we still got some zucchini.  The only thing I got to grow in Texas was okra.  And okra is disgusting so that hardly counts.

But, one setback to our current situation is moisture.  We have lots of it and it's still fairly cold and the soil is very clayey so in order to get a proper start we knew we needed to do some prep.

A couple weeks ago I set out a clear piece of plastic and let it sit and warm up the soil.  Here it is being modeled by Cadance.

Then, when Steve was home on vacation he built a couple of these wood garden frames.  Also modeled by Cadance.

We also had the utilities check to make sure we could dig without any problems.  

Then, last Saturday we caught a couple hours of mid 50's sunshine and went to work.

We made 2 4x4 foot garden beds.  First, we removed the grass and turned the first few inches of soil.  See the trees in the background, we got a couples of roots sneaking in, so those also had to go.  

Then, we added manure, sand, top soil, and peat moss.  We mixed everything together, put the garden boxes back in place and covered them up with plastic.  

I'm glad we did, the next day it snowed like 2 inches.  But, instead of having freezing, wet dirt, I just dumped everything off the plastic and put it back in place.  Hopefully we'll plant our first round of spring veggies in the next week.  

I'm so excited!