Garden Update : Part 4

Yay! After this update, we'll be all caught up!! (and hopefully Spring will have made up it's mind to hang around... boo to snow...)

The most exciting news is that Ben and I got all of the sod dug up to form the garden. I pulled on my boots on Saturday and decided to go for it. We had a nice rain on Friday so I knew the ground would be nice and soft, so I figured there was no time like the present. First I used some old grey primer spray paint and marked where I wanted to dig up (I started without marking first and it went really crooked really fast!) Then I took the big spade shovel and edged out the whole bed. I think I was a little too ambitious in the beginning - or maybe I just had no idea what I was getting myself into - but I was killing myself trying to get the pieces of sod up. I kept making them smaller and smaller, but it just kept getting harder and harder. So, once I got about a third of the bed torn up, I called it a day and decided to wait until Ben got home so we could knock out the rest together.

Good plan. We made really fast work of the remainder together. Ben was breaking up the pieces, tossing them into the bed (that knocked a lot of the dirt off) and I was shaking them off and piling them up along the back of the garage. We got done in an hour what would have taken me about six hours. Here are some before and after photos:

Look how dark that dirt is!! It makes me feel really great to know that I get to make sure all those years (about 32 or so actually...) of working that dirt don't go to waste. Thank you Grandma!

A quick tangent: There are 11 kids living in the house across the street from us. I'd say they're ranging in age from 1 to 17 (Jeremiah said that his oldest sister - #12 - is 19 and lives in Cinci.) That is A LOT of children... something totally foreign to me being an only child and all. Anyway, a bunch of these kids along with friends like to ride their bikes up our driveway, turn around on our "patio" and head back down. (I have no problem with this as long as none of my potted plants get broken.) So while I was out working in the dirt on Saturday, a whole gaggle of kids somehow ended up in my yard asking about the garden. It was actually kind of nice, they seem like pretty nice kids. I met Jeremiah and one of his littlest sisters (I'd say he's 6 or 7 maybe) and a friend of theirs, Christopher. They all wanted to try the lettuce and Christopher really wanted to help me dig up the sod. Regardless of how hard I said it was, he was persistent that he could do it and that he LIKED doing yard work. So I convinced him to try to pick up one of the rolls of sod that I couldn't even lift and that sealed the deal. I'll give him credit though, he really gave it his all. I would have been more inclined to let them help, but I really didn't want anyone losing any toes...

Ok, back to the gardening... Here's the latest of the sprouts (I wasn't kidding when I said they've really grown A LOT.)

L-R: Cucumber, Lemon Cucumber, Yellow Squash, Zucchini, Pumpkin, Brussel's Sprouts, Tomatillo, Carnival Mix Peppers, Hot Mix Peppers, Banana Peppers

Pumpkins Gone Wild!

Peppers... Growing slowly... :-/

Roma Tomatoes

Big Beef Tomatoes

Italian Ice Cherry Tomatoes

I also decided to take a few cans of spray paint and give some of the "yard art" a face lift...

Before:
After:
Overall, I'm really pleased with how those turned out. My theory stands true... There's nothing that a little spray paint can't fix!

Happy Gardening!
Amanda