A Thriving Garden

We are trying out a new and larger garden this year. To date, all the gardening we have done has been in our own backyard, in a 1 ft x 15 ft space. Not much area to work with, and not the ideal location either, since it only gets a half day of sun. We never complained, we make do with what we have. However, this year is different. One of my sisters who lives in the next town over, has a wonderfully huge backyard with plenty of space they are not using. The spot we went with was just a weed patch/junk pile. My brother-in-law got the junk cleared away for us and the weeds out. Then it was our turn to shine! Take a look...


The Painter is working up the soil here, while I dig a spot for the gate posts. In working up the soil to prepare for planting, we found that this particular area is very rocky...I think we encountered more rocks than we did dirt! You can also see in this one some huge boulders that we were never able to dig out of the ground.




Here are just a handful of the rocks we were finding.




We ended up having to sift the soil free of rocks and stones. It became a family event! Here, my mother and my son along with The Painter are doing sifting duty. The piles of soil that resulted from our tedious sifting were nearly perfect for gardening, so the hard work really paid off!




This is the day we planted our first vegetables in our freshly (and finally!) prepared garden plot.




Here is my garden with just one month growth. It is doing remarkable well!




Here also, is just a month of growth in the raised bed. We have already had a few harvest of lettuce, enough to feed 3 families each week!