How does your garden grow?

Well, it’s done!  Or at least phase one is done!  And it went a little something like this….

“Mom?  Can you see if Dad can pick me up 40 bags of top soil from Home Depot since he gets his Military discount?”

And then after that line there were about two or three phone calls from my dad…

1) Dad: Are you sure you want 40 bags of mud?  What are you trying to do?  Me: I want to fill that old pond in and make it into a raised veggie garden for my seedlings.  Dad: Do you want me to get you a truck load of mud instead?  Me: Well, I don’t know… how much is that?  How much mud are we talking? It’s not that stuff with all the manure in it, is it?

2)  Dad:  I think the truck load of mud will be better.  Me:  I just don’t think I need that much mud.  And I’m not sure of the price and the type of mud I’m getting.

3) Dad:  I’m at the mud place.  They say they will fill up the back of my truck for about $30.  It would be one scoop.  Me:  I don’t care anymore.  You do what you think is the best.  You’re the man in this I don’t know what decision to make.

And that is where I found myself this past weekend.  My parents headed to Florida and I was ready for my weekend of garden work.  I had a truck full of mud, a shovel, a wheel barrel, and two days on my hands.  Since Saturday started off with a cub scout outing and some necessary errands, I got started some where around 2 or 3 PM.  For the next four hours this is what ran through my head, scoop…. dump…. I would count off about ten shovels of mud into the wheel barrel (is that even what the thing is called???)…scoop…. dump…. and then empty a bag of compost and manure into it…. scoop…. dump…. then I would shovel about another 10 scoops…… dumps….. and mix it all together.  Then walk backwards through the fence, turn it around and head toward the pond.  I placed it next to my air conditioner thingy because not too much grass grows around it and it wouldn’t kill any of my lawn there.  Scoop…..dump…… all the way into the bottom of the pond.  Scoop…..dump…… until the wheel barrow… IT’S A FREAKIN’ WHEELBARROW – GOD LOVE GOOGLE was empty.  Then back off to the truck to do it all over again. Scoop…..dump…..  You have a lot to think about when you are moving mud.

You think about how you are not going to kill your dad for getting you this freaking truck full of dirt.  Scoop…. Dump….That you can’t drive anywhere fun because you have a pile full of dirt in the back of the truck you are borrowing. Scoop…. Dump…. You think about how you have to get this finished because you can’t drive this truck full of dirt to Harry Connick Jr on Monday night. Then empty a bag of compost and manure into it…. Scoop….. Dump….. You think about how you are not going to get upset because your Dad was doing what he thought was best and you pretty much gave him full reign to spend your money and make the final decision.  Scoop…… Dump…..  That you might be able to bury the old man right here in this f’ing pond.  Scoop….Dump….  I hope they are having a great time on the sandy shores of Cocoa Beach.  Scoop….. Dump…  Walk backwards through the fence, turn it around and head toward the pond. Scoop…. Dump…. I can’t wait until TomTom is old enough to help with this kind of thing… Scoop…. Dump…. Back over to the truck to do it all again.

That went on for about three or four times and the pod was pretty much full at that point.  Now for the fun part!  TomTom went and got all of our seedlings that had been hardened off and we planted them into the pond.  We have Roma tomatoes, Beefsteak tomatoes, Dill plants, and Bell Peppers (we bought the peppers from Home Depot the others we grew from seed).  What we ended up with was this:

Not excitingly pretty, but a veggie garden made out of an old pond that was pretty much useless for years in my back yard.  Now onto the next problem, what to do with the rest of the mud – I had about a half a truck bed full left.  I had read an article in Mary Jane’s Farm girl magazine about a layered garden made anywhere in your yard.  And I still had about twenty or more lettuce seedlings that needed to get into the ground.  I headed inside for the article and gave it a look over.  I pretty much had everything on hand that I needed, now I just needed to decide where I was going to put it.  I found the perfect spot under the tree where the grass never grows.  And it spends most of the day in part shade so the lettuce won’t be unhappy due to heat.

I covered the ground in old newspapers and paper grocery bags that I had around the house.  I used this method to cover all the area that I wanted to make into the garden. Then I gave it a good hosing down as noted in the magazine article.  Scoop…..dump….. then I covered that with about a three inch layer of the mud.  Scoop…. dump…. and the final layer was about three compost and manure bags opened up and spread out with a rake.  The fence is wet from the hose in the photo below, but other than that not too shabby for a girly girl.

The article said you needed to make your layers at up to approx two feet in height.  As you can see in the photo with one layer, and wetting it down, I was some where around three inches total.  And I was out of my paper layer.  I ran off to the Dollar General by my house and they told me I could take any card board boxes they had around the side of the store.  I filled up the back of the truck and we headed back home.  It was probably around 5:30 PM when I started my next layer.  I laid out the card board boxes over my first layer that was already on the ground and then I had at them with the hose .

Scoop…. dump…… yep, you guessed it, back to the wheelbarrow and mud.  Scoop…. dump…. and after that a few more bags of compost and manure.  At this point walking on top of the garden to spread the compost layer was a mess.  I spread the empty compost bags over where I needed to walk and this helped tremendously.  No more wet mud sticking to my shoes.  This photo shows the layers: cardboard, mud, compost.

I was on my second layer at this point, maybe some where around six inches after hosing it all down again.  The mosquitoes came out and were taking advantage of me so it was time to head inside for the night.   This is where I was at the end of day one.

My dog who had been watching me scoop and dump all day thought I was crazy and just wanted to play, so I took a photo of him before I went inside.

 

Sunday came along and I had to drag my sore butt out of bed to get finished up.  I got a call from my dad.  Dad: Did you get any of that mud moved yesterday?  Me: Ummm… I’ve been trying every since you guys left.  Dad:  Well, you need to get it out of my truck as soon as possible or it will damage my truck bed. 

Scoop…. Dump….. I will NEVER get a truck full of mud again.  Scoop…. Dump…. I will have my argument ready for when he wants to know why I just don’t want a truck of mud.  Scoop…. Dump…. If I wanted to take TomTom out to do something fun, I could just leave the bags on my porch until I had time to deal with them next weekend.  Scoop….. Dump……

I did my final layer as thick as possible to use up as much mud as possible from the truck.  I started again with a layer of cardboard boxes, a thick layer of mud, and a thick layer of compost.  I don’t know if I hit six feet, but I felt like it was enough to get me started.  The article suggested using shallow rooting plants – like lettuce – in your top most compost layer so that by summer time the bottom layers will have decomposed and would be ready for more deep rooted plants. 

Off TomTom went to get our lettuce seedlings.  I had worn a bandana tied around my hair to help keep the sweat out of my eyes and when he came around the side of the house he had a bath towel over his head, secured by a belt, with his Gravedigger hat on top to mimic me.  Then he helped me plant the lettuce.

          

Did I mention he was my bestest buddy???

The finished layered garden.

     

Now I am wishing I would have just made these around the back yard instead of fussing with the pond liner.  It just flat out looks nicer.  And in the fall I will be able to cover it up with all the pine needles and leaves that fall out of the tree and it will automatically start layering itself yearly if I add top soil and compost and then new plants.  But for now I will stick with this and the pond garden.