A New Year

**This post is a long one, it's an intro and most will not be this long!**

Last year we planted a garden, it was an experiment and a rush job.

This year, we hope to actually grow some tasty additions to our menu and we hope to help others in the process.

This blog will tell the story of our gardening trails. Not just the good, but also the bad. Were going to post tips we find, toss out information that we come across, and hopefully help others to create their own little slice of the country in their backyard.


One of our problems with last years garden {and there were a myriad of them} was that we did not give our plants space or depth enough to grow. The bed was a previously a sandbox and after emptying it we started a layer garden. We did not give enough layers for the plants to really take root and show a yield. This year we started from scratch.


Almost the same time last year as we started our garden we acquired a mass amount of "landscaping" rocks. They were various sizes and shapes and were from someones yard. The listing was on craigslist and basically was a you move, you keep deal. No funds involved other than the gas to get them to and fro.

We spent several hours over a two day period and gathered as many truckloads as we could. The idea at that point had been to use them for a patio.

The more we moved, the less they looked like possible patio rocks. They were large and odd shaped and sharp edged. Something we were going to have to seriously dig out for. And so they sat.

For nearly a year they sat in our front yard collecting leaves. I was determined they were going to be used.


This winter we decided several trees in our yard would have to be removed. They are encroaching on the house and one we believe to be dead. As such, we started discussing the plans for this years garden. My husband mentioned the stones out front, asking if perhaps we could build a rock wall for the garden. We'd already used a couple of stones here or there to help in our reshaping the flower beds to help with the flow of water across the yard in the rains.

It was decided quickly that that would be a great way to use the rocks.

Now, there are only a few spots in our yard that get decent sun right now. Most of the yard is covered by tree shade. The one area that does get a bit of sun was lower than the rest of the yard. So first we had to build up the yard in that area.


We've been quite busy over the past fall and winter and thus had lots of leaf matter in the yard. We raked the majority of this into the area of the yard that was lower as fill. Every time we went out and raked up spots we'd add it to this area. Instead of hunting down a load of dirt and just tossing bags of leaves out to the curb, we managed to fill the area several times over with leaves. {I did say we have a number of trees!}

About two months later and the ground was nearly level. When we ran out of leaves we used some of the neighbors. They were fine with us picking up their bagged leaves.

The wonderful thing about doing this is that we created a very nutrient rich bed in which to start our garden.

Our city does not have a program that I've seen in some other cities where they offer mulch/fill for free. Ours charges for it. We would rather compost our own mulch*.

Lines set out we built our garden wall in one day.

It's not perfect, it's quirky and makes me think of wild English gardens. I cannot wait to fill it with leafy greens.

But sprouts come first.



*We will discuss compost in another post later on. It's great stuff and simple to fix if you feel you've done something wrong.