It all started with an onion.

It began sprouting on the kitchen counter, and Matt decided to plant it in the backyard.  Then he started thinking about potatoes, green chiles, bell peppers, beans, tomatoes...  And that is how the idea of the garden was born. 

This all happened about a month ago, and I've been hesitant to post about it up until now, because ... well, you know how these things go.  Plans change, people have differences of opinion, etc. etc.  But last week, we decided to go for it and really set our plan into motion. 

Let's backtrack a little bit, to a time when our little garden was merely a figment of our imaginations.  We started with a drawing.  In Paint.  I thought it was cute, but Matt later decided it was stupid and deleted it, so I won't be showing you that one.  Sorry.  But don't worry.  I have other pictures.

The first actual thing we did to start our garden was install the fencing, to keep the dog out.  It's a pretty simple design.  A 50 foot roll of fencing attached to steel posts by plastic zip ties.  The gate has a strip of wood at the end and is held closed by bungee cords.

Here's what we pulled up (with shovel for scale)

Now the fence was up and the weeds were gone, but we still hadn't committed to much yet.  The soil here is not spectacular for growing a vegetable garden on its own.  If I were a better soil scientist, I could explain why, but I'm not.  All I knew was we had to make it better somehow, so we began to look at our options. 

We are currently at a point where telling more of the story would involve me having to upload more pictures from my camera, which I don't really feel like doing right now, so you'll have to wait until later for part 2.