Lots of Dirt

Growing things requires dirt. This year, we talked about making a sunflower house for the boys, but then Natty wanted to do a raised bed, so we went with that instead. We built the raised bed out of found boards and sticks to hold them in place. This made it very rustic and properly Hobbit-like.

Then we ordered dirt to fill the space. Based on some algebra problem I couldn't quite understand, the woman at the garden center said we needed 5-1/2 yards of dirt (topsoil plus humus). So we bought that much and had it delivered.

Since our garden is technically in the next door neighbor's yard, we needed to dig it all pronto in order to get our dirt off their driveway. It took five hours. The kids, er, sort of helped. By "helped" I mean stamped the dirt pile down to make it harder to dig.




By the end of it, Natty and I were sunburnt and achy. Especially since we're all sorts of out of shape. Our seedlings aren't looking too hot either, but luckily my farmer friend Lynn had an accident with her plants and we may get a deal on some unknown tomato varieties. Of course, I always think that we're going to fail miserably at gardening and still somehow we end up growing things. How is a complete mystery to me though.