Raising the bed.

Which is similar to raising the roof. Kinda sorta. but not really.

You know I love my veggie garden. It has brought me tremendous joy the past few years.
B U T, it has brought me tremendous anxiety this past year.
Anxiety? I know. I am wacky.

My garden circa early 2012

You see, the problem was every time I went out there to work the garden, it was filled with weeds. Grass weeds. Weed grass. The kind of stuff that required so much work, that it overwhelmed me.

So instead of looking forward to gardening, it stressed me. And then there were the rocks. Actually boulders. In some spots, I could not place plants because apparently our property was at one time a quarry. 

my garden mid 2012

I thought about just scrapping the whole dang thing. A match and some gasoline. *poof*

I shared this with Coach's Mom at Christmas and we discussed that if I were to raise the bed, and add tons of new soil, it would be easier to maintain. But taking on THAT task also overwhelmed me.

B U T since I have the best MIL on the planet...she volunteered for herself and Coach's step-dad to come back and build a bed for me. Yes.they.did.

I know. I am so darn lucky. And it's not like they live down the street...it is a 2 1/2 hour trek for them.
So, two weekends ago, they came over and we started.

 Sometimes the Coach threatens me with that very same sledgehammer if I don't cook him chicken wings. 

 There was much debate about my garden fence. Do we leave it? Do we redo it? Do we scrap it?

Of course, you can't work in the garden without having a dog or five getting in your way. 

 The coach came up with a genius way to keep the fence, but make it better than before by using things we already had. He has the brain of an engineer. which is exactly why I don't know what he is talking about half the time. 

 The Coach and Bill pretty much had this job handled...but every once in a while Sue or Lindsay would bark out some orders from the shade of the golf cart.

I would never do that. I barked my orders from the shade of the house.

Ok, that was 2 weekends ago. This past weekend I had 7 yards of compost delivered. 

Two deliveries like this one.

 And then my super sweet nephew Bryan and the Coach shoveled it into the bed.  You'll be proud to know that I also helped out with the shoveling of sh*t compost.

On Sunday, I added my plants.

Voila. My garden is raised, as are my spirits.

No rocks. No weeds. Just plants and some garden chotskies.  

 We had a bit of extra compost material and filled in low spots on either side of the garden.

 I'm still debating on putting some sort of lattice/fencing on the backside...because I have tomato loving dogs.

 Yeah, they look innocent enough...but right here they are both plotting against me to eat all the tomatoes. 

Bastids.

So, that has filled up my life for two weekends....and I am a happy bee right now.

I'm so thankful for my helpful peeps! 

Now I can go back to only being stressed out with things happening INSIDE our house! 

You know, like a normal crazy person. 

XOXO