Baby Making (Veggie Style)

 Get you're minds out of the gutter, I'm not talking about having/using cucumbers in bed.

We just put together a garden in the backyard this weekend (I helped, I have the sunburn to prove it!). I've obviously needed to create something for awhile and since I am apparently incapable of growing an infant inside my body I thought I'd grow some veggie babies in the garden. Tomatoes, Peppers and strawberries this season. I'll nurture and care for those instead of a fetus and hopefully my biological clock will slow down and my mind will be occupied with something other than infertility. I will hopefully have a very fertile backyard garden. In case you didn't know, plant reproduction is very similar to human reproduction (Read Club TTC's blog post about tree sperm if you disagree).

It took way longer than I thought to get it together, but the garden looks fantastic so I'm glad we took the time to make it look nice. And although H didn't want to help at first as he thought it would be a lot of work (and he was right) he did chip in and do most of the work on Sunday.

We have a very southwestern yard where it is mostly rocks, but last summer we had a landscaper put in a concrete pad for an extended patio, put in sod because we couldn't get grass to grow (we had them insert a sprinkler system too, because remembering to water it was likely our problem), they also put in palm trees and a cypress tree. The freak February storm killed our palm trees and we've had one removed (they have to come back to do the other because they didn't have enough manpower to take it out as it's probably 1000 pounds). That storm also killed back the cypress tree so it is now growing from the ground rather than the branches.

Because all of that wasn't enough for me, and neither was all of the potted plants I did back in March, we decided to clear room for a garden this weekend. We moved backyard rocks out of the way to make room. It took all of Saturday to for me to clear an 9 by 6 foot area as the landscaping rocks had been moved around for the concrete pad we had put in so they rocks were a foot and a half deep where the garden was to be (and BTW H was still refusing to help me on Saturday so I did this by myself).

Early Sunday we lined the dug out area with large stones (25 pounds a piece, whew that was a lot of work). All went well until H decided that he needed to fill in the cracks in the stone border we created with loose dirt. My patience was limited at this point due to 2 days of hard labor and what was sure to be severe sunburn. He was dumping dirt everywhere (including into the landscaping rocks) although I was sure the cracks would be filled when we filled the cleared area with dirt and compost he continued to do it. He finally quit when I threatened to start kicking him in the balls if he continued. (BTW I was right, the remaining cracks filled in fine when we dumped in the bagged dirt.

Although we have yet to plant anything and still have to install a short fence to keep the dogs out, I feel successful.

Here's hoping we have a successful summer harvest and that my little veggie babies are tasty.

Side note: We are heading to Colorado Springs for the long weekend with a few extra days of vacation thrown in so I hope that I can keep up with your blogs while we are there. We are bringing a few plants back from H's dad's greenhouse for our new garden.

Second Side Note: Mary did come to help do the gardening, so I want to make sure that she gets credit. But she did spend most of the time supervising and tanning in the sun.

Third Side note: I will post a pic when we actually plant the plants.