It’s time to get the garden ready so we’ll have a place to put all those plants we are growing in the office. I spent eight years getting the gardens at the old house to almost perfect condition, and it’s hard to have to start all over again. The dirt here is pretty crappy. We don’t have any beds built. I get tired just thinking about it.

The folks who lived here before did have a garden, so there was a sort of garden-shaped space with an overrun asparagus bed. Last spring my mom and I put fencing up around that area, and Andy planted some tomatoes there, but we didn’t get much. Partially because of the sad dirt. Partially because of the very dry summer. Towards the end of the summer, Andy put in an irrigation system.

This year we decided to pretty much start all over. Here’s how the area looked when we got started.

We pulled up the fence and posts and irrigation system, and while Andy started tilling I dug up the asparagus (and found the bunnies). Andy tilled and tilled and tilled and tilled some more. At one point, Andy yelled, “MOVE!” I think I almost got tilled. That thing is huge and powerful, and it has a mind of its own. Yaieieie.

I decided to seek a safer locale, so I ran off and mowed between Christmas trees. (Mowing is fun. Mowing on a steep slope around a bunch of Christmas trees is less fun.) After an hour or two of backbreaking (and scary) work, the garden area looked like this.

Off in the distance you can see Andy unloading the compost we picked up this weekend from a local farm / organic gardening supply place, Seven Springs Farm. It sure seemed like a big lot of compost until we dumped it onto the garden area. I think we’ll go back next week for another batch.