Green Thumb?

I don't necessarily have a green thumb, but I am drawn to planting and gardening. I love being outside. I enjoy pulling weeds and I love freshly grown veggies. I think what I lack is experience, patience and focus. (Funny how my lack of patience seems to affect all areas of my life!) I've had minimal success over the years as I've tried to garden, but I just can't give up YET.

Our garden has been in the works since last year. I got Darin on board with trying out a raised bed vegetable garden using the square foot gardening method. He loves to build so he made me a raised bed and attached a mesh screen to the bottom to keep out the moles and voles. By the time we got the bed made, it seemed too late in the season to really get going with the garden so we put the planting on hold.

Last weekend we finally moved forward with gusto and I'm pretty excited! I'm thankful that Darin is as eager as I am and so willing to join me in this project. Our garden is loosely based on the theories in this book.

I am also thankful that Luke is SO helpful and hard working. He delights in projects like this and he is definitely old enough to be an asset. Looks like he needs a larger wheelbarrow and wagon. Oh my,  he's getting big!

First we leveled out the garden and made sure the screen was attached to keep out the critters.

 Then we mixed 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite.

 We wet the soil and smoothed it out.

We measured out our grid and attached twine. 

Luke helped hammer in the nails after attaching the twine.  

Then we got busy planting! I have a few more squares to plant, but we're off to a good start.  

My expectations are pretty low, but I'm hoping the conditions are right to get at least a little bit of veggies. Then maybe we can learn from our mistakes and have more success each year? We'll see!