Getting my hands dirty

Quite literally.

I am so very excited to get work going on our new vegetable garden! Yesterday my father-in-law came over to help me scope out the land. Basically, to decide how the heck to do this with the craptastic clay soil we have here. There were two options, as we saw it.

1. Rent a rototiller and till the hell out of the soil, adding a bunch of good stuff into it so things will grow.

2. Build a raised bed and fill it up with good stuff so things will grow.

We ended up going with option two, since I found relatively inexpensive soil and boards to build the planter. I had gone back and forth over the raised bed issue for a couple of weeks, annoyed by the amount of soil needed, but encouraged by the better rooting that could take place. We found some boards in the scrap pile at the hardware store today and the decision was made.

Plus a rototiller won't fit in my car.

So now I have an ambitious garden planned... Did I mention it's 8 feet by 8 feet? I'm frickin' crazy. On the menu this summer:

1 zucchini *

1 jalepeno

1 anaheim pepper

2 bell peppers **

2 purple tomatoes of some sort (in a clay pot ~ 2 ft tall) **

2 heirloom beefsteak tomatoes of some sort **

2 cherry tomatoes **

1 sweet basil

1 purple basil

2 cantelope

1 watermelon

Here's where it's going to go:

I'm ridiculous excited about the possibility of making purple bruscetta if the purple tomatoes and purple basil survive.

Ummmmmm holy crap I'm in over my head. And to think, I wanted to start off with a SMALL garden....


* free from a friend who accidentally bought a 4-pack
** free from the horticulture dept at the local university. i live in an awesome college town.