A little background

I've poked around in the garden for a few years now, but this was the year that my friend Carrie and I decided to get serious about growing vegetables in my backyard. After all, we've both just become moms, so this should be the perfect time to take on anther major project, right? As it has turned out, gardening has been the perfect thing to bring balance to our lives as we negotiate new-motherhood, and thanks to the support of our amazing husbands and families, we have been able to carve out enough time to start a beautiful, bursting with life little garden.

We got started in February, clearing out blackberries and pulling grass. Here's what it looked like. Alonso's mom Melody is entertaining Oliver while I do some digging:

In March we had 5 yards of beautiful compost delivered (from the dump's green-waste composting program--Sonoma Hi-Test, enriched with duck feathers). Carrie's mother-in-law watched the babies one day (and brought us squash starts!), and then my parents came to lend a hand the following weekend.



It felt like a miracle to see four beautiful beds ready to go. We started calling it "the farm". With my mom advising us every step of the way, we planted our first crops: peas, swiss chard, mitzuna, tatsoi, broccoli, green onions, potatoes, and lettuce.

Meanwhile, we kept working on digging out the blackberries and creating more beds. We went from four to 6, and are currently working on number 7....