Hard Labor - Garden Style

Last fall hubby and I purchased two additional raised bed garden kits.  This would double my garden space.  The soil where I live is awful.  It is clay and rocks.  The only thing that it grows well, is weeds.  I tried gardening just in the ground and mixing in improvements.  It was a disaster. I just could not improve it enough.  The next year, we tried growing in pots.  This was too much work trying to keep everything watered. The next year, we put in two raised beds and purchased dirt to fill them. Things improved.  The last two years bounty has been wonderful just from those two little beds.  It was difficult to keep up with while I was working.

What is so different between the first two beds and the new two beds?  GRASS!  When we built our house ten years ago, there were no improvements to the back yard (and we have a huge back yard.)  We did pay to have a sprinkler system installed.  The first summer, we purchased enough grass to go on the sides of the house and even with the back of the house.  The next year we purchased three more pallets of grass.  Ditto for the next year until we finally reached the back fence.  Hubby built a storage building so I hid my garden behind it (with the compost bin).  All this to say:  there was never any grass growing in the original garden spot.  To add to the garden, we had to get rid of some of the grass.

Hubby rented a sod cutter.  He's such a great guy.
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It was sort of like using a tiller -  lots of power, hard to control. It did get the job done.
This is an in progress picture.

Of course, all that sod was attached to rocks and clay soil.  It had to go somewhere.  Someone had to pick it up and move it.  That turned out to be my job.  It was relocated to just outside our fence to discourage the weeds that love to grow there - and blow their glorious seeds into our back yard.

Hubby had started putting the beds together a couple of weeks ago and left them on the patio to fall over.

So after much work and sweat, shoveling and raking, attempting to beat the rain this afternoon, this is what we have.

We will level it more when we fill it with dirt (more shoveling and raking).  The final touch will be a drip irrigation system so I don't have to "hand" water any longer in the hot summer evenings.

Notice the green container in the back of the picture.  This is one of two plastic compost bins I have to take care of my yard and kitchen waste.  Hubby has agreed to build me a bigger better one.  He's such a sweety. 

I can't wait until the danger of frost is gone - possibly after this week.  I can purchase transplants and plant seeds.  I can taste those tomatoes now.

Stay tuned for the building of the compost bin - hopefully coming to my yard soon.