Expanding the Garden (Again)

When we bought our house a little over a year ago we were pretty darn excited that it already had a good sized garden space.  No matter that it was overgrown and had only been used as a dumping grounds for grass clippings by the previous owner.  In fact, it was completely fenced off from the rest of the yard--as in there was no gate, no way to get into the garden until Matt tore down the fence.  Obviously it hadn't been being used as a garden any time recently.

But, Matt is a man obsessed.  A man who frequently is of a one track mind.  And that track is almost always gardening.  Gardening, gardening, gardening.  So he cleaned that sad ol' garden space up in rather no time at all.  Then he enlisted the help of our dear friend Derek to expand the existing space just a bit--about 100 square feet.

This year he as expanded the garden once again--by another 200 square feet.  I wouldn't be surprised if in a decade or so the vegetable beds extend right up to the back door!  It is so fantastic to have the freedom and space to do this sort of thing.  It is a whole different world than when we were gardening in the flower beds at our rental.

Matt cutting out sod which we later dispersed around the yard to fill in spaces as needed.  The remainder will be composted.

Matt tilling up the hard packed earth formerly underneath the sod with with his dad's new rototiller.

The four new beds are in the foreground.  The nearest one has been tilled, but not yet the others.

Matt raking over the nice soft soil in one of the older beds, getting everything  just so for his precious little seeds and transplants.

Matt is pretty much always smiling when he is out in the garden....and he is almost always out there when the sun is up. I told him I might have to make a sign for the front door that says if we don't answer when you knock you should just check out back!

We had enough edging bricks and scrap wood to edge two of the four new beds.  It may be homespun, but I think it looks wonderfully charming.

We still need to round up some edging materials for these two new beds though.

The four new beds, about 50 square feet each.

I have pretty high hopes that we are going to produce a wonderful bounty this year.   We had a gangbusters inaugural season last year and now we have even more space for our little green things to thrive and fruit.  The addition beds will also make it much easier for us to rotate the beds around each year so that we can discourage pest naturally, without pesticides.  Hooray.