How does your garden grow?

I have dreamed of having my very own garden for several years now and my sweet, precious, dear, wonderful hubby decided that this was the year to help me make that happen.  We only have one spot in our yard that is really an appropriate place for a garden and that involved taking out an entire row of not so attractive privet hedges.  Matt did this by hand and, as things always tend to do for us, it turned in to quite a job....

A whole row of these suckers had to come out and let me tell ya it wasn't fun for poor Matt.  But it is done and our yard really does look better with the hedges gone.  Our neighbor has beautiful azaleas that were hidden behind our hedges so now those line our garden area.

We are planning our garden based on the book "All New Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew.

It seemed like the best solution for the little area of space we have in our small yard.  Basically we built a raised garden where you grow your fruits, veggies, flowers, etc.  in square foot sections.  There is a whole formula to all of this but Mel, the author, has it all figured out and has laid everything out in a seemingly simple manner.  I will let you all know if it is as revolutionary as he claims when it comes time to harvest what we are planting.

Once the hedges were cleared, Matt and Hannah marked off the garden area...

The building process was a family affair...

and I have never seen Hannah work so hard on a project.  Sweat was literally pouring from her sweet head.  I should probably stop here and tell you that I did not realize how much work she was actually going to do when I let her go outside in the dress she was wearing.  This was actually the same day as Lily's 1/2 birthday celebration so they were both a little overdressed for working in the yard.  Thankfully Hannah's dress was machine washable :)

Now that that little matter is cleared up...Both girls really did enjoy helping out and Hannah is now a master at reading a level, holding a hammer, and many other great things.  She loves, loves, loves working with her daddy and I am always such a proud mama when I see my girls involved in what we are doing around the house.

With the construction phase of the garden complete we have spent the past couple of days putting in the soil and planting our summer veggies.  I will save that for a later post though.  I hope you all have a great weekend!

Love,
The Browns