Gardening Adventures...

For a little while now, I have wanted to try out gardening...apparently the hubs was thinking about it too, because he was on board right away!  We used our side yard and built an above raised garden bed.  I was hands on during the entire process, but the hubs did the most of the beginning grunt work (raking the rocks away and leveling the ground) and then we both built it and then Kaila and I planted everything!  We had so much fun and I am so excited to see how it does!

DAY 1

The before...

The boys trying to help or as they said, "making pancakes"---haha!

The sprinkler system works!

I don't remember what this tool is called, but it is heavy and it packs the ground...it's what we used to help level everything...

The boys goofing off...which is what the did the entire time!

Kaila helping move the rock...

It's kind of dark, but this is what it looked like at the end of Day 1...

DAY 2

We still needed more soil and plants, so we were at Home Depot & Lowes first thing this morning!  This was the start to Kaila's favorite moments of gardening :o) 

We got the soil and then realized (thanks to Papou, Jim's Dad who is an amazing gardener!) that we needed real dirt to mix in...now where else would you get dirt besides stealing, taking, borrowing, from the farm behind the house?! 

I even participated...only because...well we needed dirt!  And, for the record it was beyond heavy!!

I hauled every single bag of dirt (minus 1) and dumped every single one in...

And then I had to mix the soil and dirt without destroying the sprinkler system...it was hard work!!

Then it was time to plant!!  We placed everything where we wanted it first...

And then we planted away our tomatoes, zucchini squash, crooked neck squash, carrots, lettuce, jalapenos, red/yellow/green bell peppers, celery(may not work, but we tried), beets, another type of tomato, green onion, parsley, chives, garlic, strawberries & smaller round watermelon (this may not work out either b/c of the limited space, but Kaila so desperately wanted to try it out so I said what the heck!)

And now...the after shot! 

Not too bad for our first time putting in a garden?!  Now, I am going to make these little stakes that state what is growing---they are going to be super cute!!

This was a lot of hard work, but we all pulled together and had lots of fun!!  Whether the garden works out or not, I am so proud of what we did!  However...I am beyond wiped out and super sore...so, Farmer Ashley is signing off.  Good Night!