Garden 2009: part 1

We didn't tend to our garden area over the winter like we did last year (pulling out the old plants and mulching with leaves), so it was overgrown with weeds like you wouldn't believe. Being huge with child didn't help in my motivation to get the weeds out and the garden planted, but four days before Henry was born the sun came out and I really got the fire to plant. So on Jeff's first day of paternity leave, since we didn't have a baby, we rented a rototiller.

I didn't get a great shot of the whole garden before the rototilling, but this is the side where we throw all the weeds once they're picked to keep them out of the compost pile. Just imagine the whole thing with overgrown weeds like this. It was crazy. Weeds definitely love the rainy Oregon winter.

We only rented the machine for two hours, so Jeffrey had to be quick about it. Rototilling is a lot of work.

Once the soil was ready we headed over to our favorite garden center to pick up some seeds and plant starts. We also bought some wood to make a raised bed to try our hand at square foot gardening. After several friends recommended this method, and one even loaned me her book, we decided to give it a try.

We planted the tomatoes, zucchini, peas, lettuce, and yellow squash right in the dirt, and decided to try cucumbers, basil, green beans, carrots, and radishes in the 4'x4' box we built.

(Funny story about this day. I was having some pretty painful contractions during this whole planting session. They didn't actually turn into real labor, but you can see in this picture I must have been in the middle of one)