May. 14, 2008 - Our "Garden"
term used loosely 
I have always planted flowers, but this year have decided to have a real vegetable garden. Dear hubby and I had artistic differences. I wanted raised beds, he wanted to use the overgrown flower bed along our retaining wall. He didn't want to mow around wooden raised beds, I just wanted to build frames and plop them down and be done with it (I did not want to deal with the grass and weeds we'd have to dig up). After much debate, I realized I needed to be the godly wife I probably should have been before the discussion began, so I relented.
We spent pretty much all day outside on Monday, silly me wore no sunscreen and have a lovely sunburn on my shoulders. 
But we made progress. Even met our European neighbors who gave us some beans to grow. How nice of them!
We only were able to build a compost bin and totally clear out 18 ft and have it totally ready for seeds/seedlings that day. We had been out there from around 10:30 until about 6:30, we were getting pooped. But we have the beginnings of a garden! Need to prepare much more soil, but this is a start. I'm so glad that I finally have my beginning of a garden!
We found several really big rocks (12" across) which Bagel Boy proceeded to play the River Rock Game with, you had to cross the river rocks without getting your feet wet (grass was water), we also found tons of small rocks, a rusted metal thingamajiggy, pieces of tile, and a rusted train track nail.
The Bermuda grass was not my fave, but actually we had 2 good days of rain so the soil wasn't as hard to work as I had feared, and with a pick axe, we did well. I'm a little concerned about rainwater coming down the hill and pooling or washing away the bed, but we shall see what happens.
Oh, I read some of Square Foot Gardening (hence my desire for raised beds) and used Mels' Mix for our soil. Our soil here basically is a really pale beige w/ some spots of red Georgia clay, but our bed was actually not too bad, I used to use this bed for flowers and had used a little compost there (I used to plant the tall zinnias mixed with wildflowers all down this bed and they were BEAUTIFUL! HERDS of butterflies!!!) But I still bought mushroom compost, composted cow manure, and peat. The 'recipe' called for vermiculite but I could not find any, so I just skipped that part. Hope that'll be OK.
I think I'm going to monitor how much sunlight the rest of this 86' bed receives as we need much more growing space (guess I should have done this already).
Here is just another bed we've started alongside the fence. I want to make this bed deeper and longer.
Misc pictures from our 'garden'
Baby peach from our peach tree (its probably about 1 1/2" long)
The WHY behind my wanting to get the garden in yesterday. I have what I think are peas (have to find my chart to verify) climbing on our lamp on the homeschool table AND on our blinds!!! These babies need to be planted outside! 
Misc pretty pics (roses):
Here is a strange peach:
I feel so much better that we've made this progress. Lots more work to do, but I'm encouraged.
Seedlings I have so far:
- tomatoes
- peas
- beans
- broccoli
- pumpkin
- eggplant
- butternut squash
- zucchini
- cucumber
- lettuces
- peppers
- watermelon
and I'm sure something else. Where is that chart...
