Starting The Garden

If you know me, you know I tend to go overboard on most things. Moderation is not my strong suit Putting in a garden at Pauline Manor is no exception.

It was my goal from the beginning to have a large flourishing vegetable garden where I could shop from my backyard. This weekend I made huge strides toward that goal.

I purchased two raised 8x4x1 beds from Amazon a few weeks ago and yesterday I spent the day filling them with 26 large bags of organic compost soil.

This morning I woke up at 4 am with a brainstorm inspired by a TikTok I watched before bed where a woman was training her veggies to grow up a steel wire mesh material. Since the former residents left some of that behind, I decided to try my hand at building my own raised bed with that steel wire mesh attached for my veggies.

It took longer than it should have and Mike had to make all of the cuts for me because I still can’t figure out how to make a hand saw work – but I’m darn proud of my homemade raised bed. PLUS I got enough to make a second one so I’ll be working on that next weekend!

I bought what I thought was a ton of veggies this morning but turns out it only filled one of those massive beds… oh well, guess that means I need to get more. I’m very happy with how it turned out and excited that I’ll get to “play in the dirt” some more to plant the other bed soon.

Once I get everything set just the way I want it, I will order a truckload of pea gravel to cover the entire area and set some pavers to walk through. Then of course some solar lights and gnome statues maybe even a little bench to sit on. I swear I feel the happiest I have in a long time after spending time with my hands dirty.

In my typical overboard fashion – I planted five variations of tomatoes, four bell peppers, one squash, three okra, three cucumbers, three sage, two rosemary, two lemon balm, and four basil. Now I just need the sign that says “Grow, Dammit.”