Step 3 - Breakage Fees Are Extra (Assembly)

Now we're getting somewhere. That small pile of lumber that was delivered to our house contained a lot more boards than seems possible - at least when you're the one in charge of staining them all. It took me almost an entire weekend to get them all done. I'm not complaining. I just didn't expect it to take that long.

In the beginning, when I still had energy to take a picture.

Meanwhile, my husband and sons were busy doing...something. I still haven't quite figured out what it was, but it involved a lot of running around to get parts we didn't have and trying to get the ground prepared to put the boxes down. Oh, and it also involved this:

Oooh, sparkly!

See all of those tiny, shiny pieces? Those are what's left of one of our windows. If you look closely, you can see in each piece a dollar sign of one of the bills it's going to take to replace it. Honestly, when I walked into the kitchen and saw it, I barely blinked. These kinds of things are par for the course around here, and it was kind of fascinating to see how one small stone could completely shatter a piece of glass*. The guilty party shall remain unnamed (because marriages sometimes work better that way), but I think my husband's response sums it up pretty well: The garden just got a lot more expensive.

Moving on... The assembly goes pretty quickly once you have everything prepared. The first step and biggest hassle we had was putting the landscape fabric down. Do NOT attempt this on a windy day. Even a slight breeze can be enough to send a small child clinging desperately to the fabric on the ride of his life. I jest, but seriously, this is so much easier to do when the wind is completely dead (think horse latitudes).

Next to come were all of those boards I spent hours upon hours staining (Anyone feeling sorry for me yet? Anyone? Bueller??). With a bunch of screws and some braces, we now have the containers for our plants, and, if I use my imagination, a future lush tropical island getaway mini English-type garden that's not nearly so formal or so English-looking. Ok, so I'll scratch that idea, but realistically speaking, what we have will be a well-organized vegetable garden. It's what we were aiming for, so that goes in the 'win' column. Now all we have to do is fill it with soil.
 

*No one was injured during the making of This Shattered Window, except for, you know, the window.

Step 2 - Go Big or Go Home (Gathering Supplies)

The point of Square Foot Gardening* is to grow a lot of food in a small space. That's a great concept for normal people, but let's not kid ourselves - nobody has ever accused my family of being normal. When you're trying to feed seven people (six males), a couple of 4'x4' boxes just isn't going to cut it. So we always go big.

Here is a list of supplies we need to gather:

• landscaping fabric (to reduce the number of weeds)
• wood (to keep in the dirt - this isn't rocket science)
• stain (to protect the wood so hopefully the boxes will last longer than a couple of years)
• braces (If you're doing normal-sized boxes, these are not necessary, but since we have 22' and 28' sections that we're joining together, we need something to stabilize them.)
• screws (How else are you going to hold the boxes together?)
• conduit and netting (vertical frames for vine plants)
• soil (This is going to get an entire post to itself...aren't you excited??)
• stones (walkways)
• plants (We haven't gotten set up to do everything from seeds yet.)

Easy in theory, but time-consuming in reality. No one place has everything we need, so there's extra running for that. Factor in the fact that we didn't do enough research and had to rework some of our lumber needs (shocking, I know), and you have, in me, a person who is very thankful that this only needs to be done once. One more time, I mean. Did I mention we've been down this road before? One LAST time. This is the last time I'm doing this, I swear.

Once we got our lumber delivery, we put it in a very rough layout to see approximately what it will look like:

Future garden or Level 1 of the latest game craze?

After the kids got done using it to chase each other around the boards, I started feeling a lot more confident that this is going to look pretty close to what I had been picturing. Well, I'm also picturing landscaping and a patio, but one step at a time, right?

We're still in the process of gathering everything needed, but we've gotten enough of it that we can get the main structures assembled. Weekends seem to be the only time we can really work on it, so this is all taking longer than I had imagined, but I think it's going to be well worth the effort. And if we're late getting the plants in again this year (which we are), it gives me an excuse to run around like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland and say, "I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date! No time to say hello, goodbye! I'm late! I'm late! I'm late!"


*Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew can be found wherever fine books are sold...or wherever any books are sold for that matter.

Step 1 - It's Not Too Late to Turn Back (Planning)

Putting a raised bed garden together should be pretty simple and straightforward, right? I mean, you just build a few boxes, throw some dirt in, plant your stuff, and watch it grow. HA! Things are never that simple. When planning the layout, composition, and general purpose of your garden with the input of other people, it can be helpful to be speaking the same language - and even if you use the same words, it doesn't always mean you're speaking the same language.

I swear there were times throughout the planning process that my husband and I were talking about the exact same things but had no clue what the other was saying. Ever feel like you're stuck in the middle of Abbott and Costello's 'Who's on First' skit? Yeah, that was us.

I blame it on him being a computer geek. He likes abstract thinking and loves to design everything on the computer. I'm completely old school and figure it's easier to spend 15 minutes drawing the design on a piece of paper than to spend 3 hours trying to get the dimensions right on a computer program I don't understand. That, and computers hate me. But that's a discussion for another day.

So the shape of the garden was not hard to figure out. Since we've had such a long history of trial-and-error (they're learning experiences, ok?), we pretty much knew what we wanted this time around. We're going to have three 4'x12' boxes in the center with a border of 2' wide boxes surrounding them. Outside of that border, we're going to have a fence (two fences actually, but I'll get into that later) which we're planning on dressing up with flowers, etc.

The details will always get you though. How deep do you want the boxes? Where exactly do you want the whole thing positioned? What are you going to use to fill in the walkways? What color are you going to stain the wood?? These and many other pressing questions (maybe just for me) need to be worked out, and just when you think you've nailed something down, someone thinks of another detail, and it all needs to be reworked.

We really thought it would be simple and the majority of the thinking would be done within a couple of hours in one night. With our *vast* experience, we should have known better.

Adventures in Raised Bed Gardening (or How to Go Insane in a Few Easy Steps)

Spring is finally in the air - I think - and that means it's time to get the vegetable garden going. In the case of my husband and me, by going, I actually mean starting from scratch. No simple planting of seeds and transferring of plants for us. Oh, no...we need to build everything.

Lest you think we are new to this gardening thing, let me assure you that we have been here before - a couple of different times. The first time we tried it many years ago, we got started late and kind of just threw everything together. We did get a pretty good harvest, but it was nowhere near what we envisioned. 

After a year or two of starting too late in the season and staying busy with small kids, we decided it was time to try again with the garden thing. We were going to be serious this time. Nothing was going to stop us. Nothing except the two dogs we now had. Who knew how much dogs like vegetables (or at least the dirt they grow in)?? Since we had decided to raise a zoo (2 dogs, 5 cats, 5 kids), time was lost, and the garden was abandoned and eventually dismantled.

Fast-forward to this year. The kids, cats, and dogs are still around, but we miss having fresh vegetables, so we're giving it another shot. And that's where the insanity comes in. We have plans, people. Big plans. Ok, nothing too earth-shattering, but the garden WILL succeed this time. My stomach is counting on it.