gardening

When I reported I was trying to dig up a fifteen by eight foot rectangle of topsoil for my garden, my dad commented that it would be a piece of cake, as long as there weren't too many roots or rocks....well, dad:

I did manage to rip all the sod off the shallow gravel bed, and then set about building the first of two raised beds, using fallen timber from behind our house. Spruce poles to build up the side walls, willow stakes to hold everything upright. Using only man-power I got the frame together pretty quick.

Then I started crumbling and sorting the sod by hand. Grabbing handfuls of the sod I removed the rocks and roots and crushed the hardpack into loose clumps. This project would take me three weeks to finish...actually still a couple feet to fill yet. By the way, the weather in late May/early June reached highs of 88 degrees here. (120 degrees warmer than three and a half months ago).

More photos to follow, I've got most of this first box filled with soil, and seeded with morning glories, snow peas, beets, chives, basil, mesclun mix, and lettuce. Squash will take up the final couple of feet and then I'm off to build the second of the boxes and find a quicker way to till the earth. One handful at a time is perhaps quaint...but I'm running out of growing season. Got to get the seeds in the ground.