Potager reveal... sort of

Here is a "before" photo of our garden from last spring.

 

 

We've only had this garden space for three seasons.  We dreamed of having a garden for a long time, but there was a lot of prep work that had to be done first. 

Big prep work, like clearing lots of huge trees, and burning the debris. 

When we were finally ready, a friend encouraged me to start small.  So we did.

Neither of us wanted to feel overwhelmed or discouraged.  We just wanted to enjoy some fresh, home grown produce. 

 

We have discovered that our family likes cucumbers and zucchini among other things, but that those two things begin to quickly take over.  And if we plant pumpkins too, well...

Eric had the idea to expand the garden space.

 

It seemed simple enough, and we have a tractor to help with the heavy work.

So Eric began to tear up the ground.

Next they took down the side fencing

laid a plumb line

and began digging some post holes

They hit some big rocks so decided the tractor with the auger would be an easier, better way.

 

They set the corner post and connected the 2x4's for the cross beams.

I'm kind of picky.  I asked Eric if there was a way to have the cross bars from the left half meet the right half, instead of one resting on top of the other.  One of my favorite views is to look out my kitchen window and look at the garden and I just knew that the pickets would look different and I would see this uneven cross bar every time.  It would drive me crazy.

Then the rains came.

 

And we got sick.

 

So it sat.

 

Several weeks later they continued with setting the posts

and my sweet husband, who loves me,

fixed the cross bar.  :-)

 

Then more rain came.

In the meantime, Eric had to put some fencing up in front of the blueberries to protect the bushes from the goats, who could just wander right in from the side.

 

When we began to work on it again, we discovered there wasn't enough room for the nail gun to get into the space to attach the pickets. 

Matthew dug a trench to give us more room.

and they nailed away

 

Here is our "after" view.

 

It's mostly done.  We still need to remove the fence from around the blueberries, clean up the old materials, add some metal fencing to the inside of the new addition to keep out any critters, pick out rocks, and fill in the ditch.  Then we can rototill in those piles of  "organic matter".   We're getting there. 

 

There are four blueberry bushes on the one side. I'd like to move two of the them to the other side of the gate so that we have two on each side.  It will look even, but also give them more room to grow.  They are finally doing well where they are.  We bought them a few years ago from a farmer down the road who downsized his "vineyard" considerably.  They were shocked when they were dug up and transplanted.  The next year, they were beginning to bloom when the goats got to them.  They nibbled them way down.  We uprooted them again and moved them into the garden for protection.  We'll give them a year before we move them yet again.  Poor bushes.  The soil in the new section needs to be amended anyway.

 

Soon ... this.