Set-Up - Part 1
Once I got those raised garden beds, something shifted in me. In the past, I would've let those boxes sit there - another project I intended to start, but dragged my feet on and inevitably didn't get around to until months later. I would've let my executive dysfunction take over and fall prey to procrastination, self-doubt, and anxiety. I knew this was a huge undertaking. I needed to find the best place for it that got the most sun, level out the ground (our backyard is sloped), figure out what to plant in it, and actually DO the work of planning, planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting. It was intimidating, but this time something was different. I think I was motivated by the prospect of growth and seeing life after experiencing so much death. I wanted to nurture something and in doing so, nurture myself as well. I had the time, I claimed that homesteading and growing food was something I had always wanted to do, but never had the commodity of time, so now that I did, it was time to commit. Put my money where my mouth was and find out if this was something I really wanted, or if I was just full of shit.
I raked, and weeded, and moved a bunch of junk. I laid out the pieces of the raised beds and organized them the way I wanted. I marked off the edges of the bed so I knew where I needed to dig. I moved all the pieces back out of the way. I bought and used a garden tiller for the first time and I learned it wasn't as scary, or as difficult, as it seemed. It was actually a bit therapeutic - watching the ground transform from a compacted, hard surface into soft, workable soil. If you had walked into my backyard the first time I fired that thing up, you would've seen me sweating my ass off, arms shaking from the momentum of this thing tearing into the ground, debris flying everywhere, panicking as I almost ran over the electrical cord once or twice (or three or four times), and with the biggest damn smile on my face. The amount of pride I had for myself in that moment was so powerful. I was really DOING something. And it felt absolutely amazing.
Once the border was tilled and the garden area a bit more level, I put the bed together. As I stepped back to admire my work, and take the photo below as evidence, I felt that same pride again. I had built something. I had accomplished the first steps of a project and I knew in that moment, I was going to follow through. Clarity came in a rush and I had no doubt in myself - only anticipation and excitement as I started to plan what came next.
Admittedly, I did not realize just how big this thing was going to be and I quickly realized that I was going to need more plants. A LOT more plants. See, one of my toxic traits is that I don't look at measurements often. I could have easily calculated the number of square feet this thing had and gotten a base number of plants assuming one plant per square foot and so on and so forth, but who has time for that?
I also realized I was going to need a LOT of dirt. How in the world was I going to fill it? I was imagining bags upon bags upon bags of dirt going into this thing - so much plastic! This was not a good plan. Did you know that you can get dirt by the truck load? This fact had utterly slipped my mind. Luckily, I was reminded of this by my parents who were in the process of getting truck loads of dirt themselves for their yard. And so, on May 4th, I was brought a cubic yard of dirt and it became a family effort to unload it into the garden.
We got the dirt unloaded and distributed around the garden bed. One of our dogs didn’t quite realize that the dirt was not for him.
Sure, he looks innocent enough now, just sitting nicely on his dirt mound… but don’t be fooled. His antics led to some unplanned alterations to the garden later.
