First, we chose to do raised garden beds. We actually had this planned out and had purchased the blocks a while back to do the garden but they never got put in because we were working on finding a new home. I had our garden all designed for this year.
Our first big project was ripping down the old rotting shed. Before we could do any of that we had to clean all of the junk that was in it. That was about two and a half weeks ago. While I went to work the next Monday Alex and Luke took a load to the dump and got rid of a LOT of junk. We spent a couple more days breaking up and burning the wood after Alex broke down the shed. The following week was beautiful and warm. I headed for work on Monday morning and when I got back that afternoon, this is what I found...
Alex had ripped out part of the old fence and had started putting in the new fence posts for the garden. We went inside so they could eat lunch now that Luke was done with his nap. After lunch we all came back out and got right back to work. We go the rest of the posts into the ground and then Alex grabbed our mini tiller and went over the whole area. Where the shed was, there was sand that was easy to move around but everywhere else it was a good three inches of gravel before hitting any type of soil/sand. While we're not planting directly into the ground, it was very uneven so it helped to fill in the holes and level out the high points.
Luke really liked playing in the sandy area. We couldn't keep him out of it so I finally gave him my knee pad and he plopped his butt down to watch daddy make the thing go "vwoom vwoom wownd and wownd" with the tiller.
By the end of the day we had about half the bricks laid out in the pattern we wanted. We planned on laying out the rest of the bricks the next day.
The next morning when we got up we started making plans for the day before I headed off to teach. Alex called the city of Westport to get information on the compost that they sell. $15/cubic yard is a really good deal. When he called we found out they were out and would be for another 4 to 6 weeks. For the next couple hours we spent calling around to every place that we could looking for someone else who sold compost. Everyone else wanted $25/cubic yard or more, plus the drive to go get it. I had to take off for work so Alex kept looking. Our cost to fill the beds had gone from $45 to $75. I ended up revamping everything when we I got home from work and we came up with another layout that would take less soil...6, 3' x 4' beds. We got 1.5 cubic yards and it was the perfect amount.
When we got done, it just looked so empty in the middle so we made the decision to add a little more. We already had part of the bricks and we went and grabbed a few more from home depot. We already had a bunch of landscaping bricks from the old house so we designed a garden just for Luke...mainly so he would stay out of ours. Here is the final layout.
We have our 7 beds to work with and Luke had his two tier circles where he will grow his own little garden and will learn about how things grow and how to take care of it. I know he's only two but planting easy fruits/veggies are a great way to teach kids about being responsible for things.
We are waiting to hear back from a local company about getting pallets to use as part of our fencing and the rest will be made with twine to keep a more natural look and hopefully keep the deer, racoons, and any other critter who chooses to nibble on our produce out. Two of the big black buckets now have rhubarb in them and the other two (not pictured) will grow lettuce in for the deer to nibble on.
I will work to keep everyone up to date on how things are going.
