Houston, We Have Dirt. Lots of It.

Say hello to the most expensive pile of dirt I have ever had the joy of purchasing.

Granted, it is like the Rolls-Royce of dirt. It is specially formulated for vegetable plants, and has all sorts of stuff like compost, slate, decomposed granite, and some random clay pieces that smell like sewer. I don't know what they are, but apparently they are awesome.

Our backyard is not easily accessible, so things destined for that area usually spend some time in the driveway area of the house. Thank goodness our neighbor, Harold, is pretty laid-back about the fact we frequently destroy/dump things in the shared strip between our houses. I figure it is a fair trade-off, as I have to see him walk around his backyard with his shirt off on a regular basis.

We really need a taller fence.

This is my attempt at taking an artsy shot of me shoveling dirt that is apparently full of gold flakes. Sigh.

Ok, I want you to look carefully at the inside of each of the beds. WE DUG THEM OUT. We removed all the cruddy dirt at least a foot down in each of the beds. MORE DIGGING. ARRGGGG THE HORROR.

So, it was awful. Ahem. These plants had better grow like crazy.

So, lots of trips with the wheelbarrow to the front yard and back. After filling this one bed, I had to go to work, and David finished up. He came up with the great idea to use an old board we had in the garage as a ramp for the wheelbarrow so we didn't damage our beds. Of course this did not even occur to me, as I was too busy being proud of myself for using towels to lessen the damage. David is more intelligent than me. This is not news to anyone.


Here David's finishing up. As you can see, we've lined the bottom of the bed with newspapers to help with any weed seeds that might take a stab at life. Over time they will break down.

I would say this was the easiest part of the entire process. Of course, that might be because it was magically finished while I was at work.

We started running the hose on the beds trying to get them to compact some, because turns out we might have overestimated it a bit on the dirt. Whoops!

The bebes, tired after all his hard work

To finish it off, we spread cedar mulch on the ground between the beds and capped off the walkways with some fake stone pavers in an attempt to contain it. Several months later, and it is still working really well. We've had several hard rains, and all the cedar mulch has stayed in place. This might be because the garden was well-leveled, not that you will ever hear me say so in public.

Finished! Halleluiah!

Koa is worn out just watching us work.

What is this, you might say? Well, we had extra boards and dirt, so......herb garden. David is mainly the master of the herb garden, picking out the plants and tending them. I felt bad, because we have a short, empty bed next to our kitchen, and David wanted to build a narrow, tall, tiered garden which would have looked amazing, but I threw a fit because it did not get very much sun, and I wanted things to thrive so I can eat them on a regular basis. He gave in, and I felt bad for crushing his dreams.

But I really like it where it is now.