Gardening

I have had Paul very busy this spring creating raised beds for our garden.   Our former method of growing vegetables entailed digging a hole in the wet, clay-like ground and planting either seeds or seedlings and has yielded nothing but disappointment the last six summers.  (On a side note, hard to believe we have been out here for 6 summers!!!)  So, I put Paul to work.  First, he had to make two trips to Home Depot with his trailer and haul home all of the lumber, not an easy task according to Paul (probably because he had to make at least one of the trips with our crazy boys).  Then he had to cut and attach the wood to create the necessary depth before carrying it all down to the garden area. After that he recruited my help to get the wood in the correct position in the garden so he could attach the pieces to each other and make the boxes.  The raised beds look so nice!  But, all that work was merely the tip of the iceburg.  The hardest task, in my opinion--probably since it was the only task that I actually helped with--was getting the dirt into the boxes.  We had 12,000 lbs of dirt delivered and had to shovel it into the boxes by hand!  Paul definitely did most of the shoveling, but the boys (especially Sam) and I did offer a fair amount of assistance.  Hopefully our new garden will be bountiful (even though we are getting our plants in really late)!  Also, notice our lovely new shed in the pics below--yet another task that has kept Paul very, very busy.