Building the garden, phase one

Yay! Got started on my new garden today. I have a small area (8' wide by 40' long) behind my house that had 3-8' long raised flower beds when I bought the house. The beds were surrounded by gravel - the large, sharp kind. I've always hated it, and finally got around to doing something about it. Last night we got the chicken coop moved back into the corner (and out of the front yard, much to my bf's delight) and the chickens seem quite happy with their new location. Today I shoveled all the gravel out, removed the old raised beds and spread the dirt that had been in them. I have not been this sore in a long time!

My honey surprised me by getting off work early, so we went and got the lumber to build the new beds, and he built them by nightfall! Next steps: get the soil mix to fill the beds, sod for between the beds and the house, figure out how to keep the dog out of the beds and get the fencing that will turn the beds into a chicken run when I'm not growing. Oh yeah, I should probably order seeds and get those going at some point as well. :-) Still need to plan out what all I'm going to grow and layout the garden. And figure out a timeline so I can grow and harvest all season long. Any suggestions are welcome!

The picture of the new beds is up - I have one 32' long by 3' wide bed! Unfortunately, I don't have  before picture, but what was there previously was 3 8'x2.5' beds down the center of the space. The pictures are taken from just outside my back door. The chicken coop is down at the far end. The fence on the left is about 20' high and seperates my house from the high school's baseball field.

Tags

building raised beds, chickens, starting from scratch