This Year's Garden

Well, like I said in an earlier post, I caught the gardening bug again. I wanted to transform a dead corner of the yard into a nice veggie garden. Nothing too big, nothing too out of hand, just enough space to grow enough to stash some veggies in the freezer for the winter.

First I must say that I like the raised beds for their neatness and for their ability to let you pack tons of veggies into a small space. I had luck with them at the old house. Also, the area that I planned out is directly above our plumbing that leads to our septic system. The soil that the plumbers and excavators deposited there was a hard clay mix, not condusive to a healthy garden.


Well, this is what I threw together our first year here:
Can you even see those two tiny coffin-like raised beds against the chain link fence? Yes, pathetic, but they gave us some nice tomatoes and peppers and green beans. That vertical eyesore is the pole that the previous owners had their satellite tv dish on. I tossed together a trellis out of some scrap cedar and put it over that pole.

Here's my idea starting to come together:

Then after some measuring and cutting and hammering and hauling dirt and woodchips and planting, here we are:
I built me a little potting bench/tool bench/coffee cup holder bench:And a little compost bin between the two old raised beds:

And hopefully this is a sign of a good harvest to come: