The raised garden bed in our lower yard (pictured here in July of 2004), the one that was shaky and half rotted out when we move here 5 years ago, finally went kaput. I knew last year that there was no way that we were going to be able to milk another year out of it.

A couple of swift kicks and it was a garden bed no more. Time to get to work!

Some serious man (and mini-man) power. Those logs are heavy! Or so I’m told… ahem. Hey, I did all the planning…that’s some hard work, let me tell you. Seriously though, when I wasn’t taking pictures I was helping! Just not so much with the moving of the logs. Steve gets to be the brute force around here!

Ultimately, I’m hoping to build a set of four raised beds amongst the fruit trees. My goal is two this year and two next year.

Here is the first installment, filled with the soil that we put some much time into building up in the other garden. Compost too of course. I am ridiculously sentimental about compost. I get all kinds of emotional over using waste, that was turned into food for our plants, that will in turn feed us.

All full of cold weather veggies…We planted two types of kale, several lettuces, collard greens, and lots of brussel sprouts.

The hardest part about planting was that Galen was convinced we were serving lunch. I had to replant many a prematurely harvested kale plant. They don’t seem any the worse for wear though and everything has settled in nicely now.

As for our slowly dwindling dirt pile…

Let’s just say it’s being put to use in more ways then one.