Our adventures in growing veggies begins!

Last year I was really excited to have a garden. Really since we bought our house with a biggish backyard that gets good sun, I've been daydreaming about it. But I got really serious last spring, and I read two books that really helped me formulate a plan - Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew (there's also a pretty helpful square foot gardening website) and The 20-Minute Vegetable Gardener by Tom Christopher and Marty Asher . Both books advocate building raised beds with a special mix of soil so you don't have to do lots of digging and weeding to grow veggies. Last spring we just couldn't find the time with a little baby and both working full-time. But this year, with me working at night and Matt unemployed, we could do it!

So last week with Dassa here to help entertain Cadie, Matt dug out a 4 ft by 4 ft patch in our lawn, built me this raised bed, filled it with the prescribed mix of compost, peat moss, and vermiculite, and then made a nice square foot grid with nails and twine. Cute, huh?

Today we got started planting seeds. Don't worry, Mom, I checked the frost date and we only planted the stuff that can tolerate a little cold. Here's the list of what's in the ground now: spinach, broccoli, carrots, radishes, cilantro, lettuce, basil, and cucumber. (The tomatoes and peppers are coming later.)
Here I plant carrot seeds while Cadie plays with the dirt.
She really liked the dirt. I know it looks like she may be eating dirt in this picture, but she wasn't, we promise. We did let her hold the little spade for a minute and she licked it (I guess it looked like a spoon?). We were both right next to her when she licked it and quickly took it away and said "Ew - not for eating." By the look on her face, I don't think she'll try that again.