Progress!

I am so happy to report, that as of 6pm today, the fence is complete!   There was a stage last week that the husband rained buckets on my parade by claiming he hated how big it was, and that it had completely ruined our back yard.  He has slightly changed his tune now that it is complete.  That might be "coping", but I'll take it.

Getting the double thumbs up!  Yes, why yes, it is a very large garden.  The internal size is 32 feet by 27 feet.  That is 864 square feet.  My god, that's bigger than my first house!  There will be a lot of vegetables, methinks.

Oops - I think they forgot to use my vintage garden gate, but it's probably good.  This works better.  Can't wait to plant a climbing rose on that pergola!

I had water plumbed from the house to inside the veggie garden.  No dragging fifty feet of hose for me!  This was not expensive to do.  I am thrilled.

This space has been left open for a shed.  My shed quest has been almost as frustrating as my fencing quest.  Hopefully I'll have answers soon.  However, I'm completely out of money - this fence broke the bank.  So guess what deer - you have open access for a while.  Egads.

The veggie garden at the top of the hill.  Huzzah!!!

Beyond the Garden Gate

Before I embarked on this project to build a vegetable garden, I spent hundreds of hours on Pinterest, which I do believe was sent to earth by the devil to detain us from our regular hum drum lives, and to pine for the imagined fabulous lives being pinned on Pinterest.  Have you been there?

It is on Pinterest that I first fell in love with this garden:

There were no doubts in my mind.  After all, this setting looks very much like my own back yard.  I went so far as to purchase all the supplies for this fence, and put up a mock fence.  And instantly hated it.

Back to the drawing board.  

What followed was a series of bids by different fencing contractors.  In this event the light bulb only went off after I'd selected the actual contractor to do the job.  When the first company came out, I said YES!  When the second company came out, again I said YES!  So anxious was I to get my seedlings in the ground, I threw caution to the wind.

But then their bids came in.  They were high.  Very high.  As my mother pointed out, one can buy a shitload of organic veggies for the price of this fence.  What followed was a period of ..... nothing.  I sat and stared out at that patch of cleared dirt.  I ignored the calls from contractor 1 and 2.  

And then I met George.  He's been building fences in North Carolina for longer than you and I have been alive.  And he lives on my street!  Heck, I've even been in his house (it's for sale)!   He's just plain good folk, speaks frankly, and employs his grandson on his fence building team, who calls me ma'am all the time, and calls his grandfather "Paw Paw". 

George's bid was decent.  It was more in the line of what I imagined.  And so, I know I'm not telling you anything new or brilliant - but yes, get multiple bids!  I'm so glad I did.

In the mean time, while I wait for George and his team to start, I did go out and buy a garden gate. 

I am thrilled with this vintage find.  The hubby?  Not so much.

Still waiting for the fence - so here's a side note.

Went for a walk/run today ( meaning I start out running, and end up walking).  Took the road behind our house.  It's the boonies, and I was a little nervous.  My husband says I watch too much TV.

But check out these cool tobacco barns.  I sort of love them.

Hello!

This blog is a story of wood, earth, water, and seeds. One day, after spending too many hours on the internet and slowly coming to grips with the downward spiral of our conventional food source, I informed the family that we would start growing our own food. I imagined a small, not too difficult project involving tilling a bit of land, tossing down a few seeds, and soon thereafter reaping the benefits of my (not too intensive) work. But that fantasy was not to be. The reason being:

 DEER.

 We (sort of) live out in the country. This means that a subdivision was plonked down in the middle of the country. But we do have more than an acre, and our property is bordered by a large unkempt field, and some deep dark woods. In my 18 months here I've sighted one coyote, several hundred rabbits, a tortoise, a shedded snakeskin and two snakes (but for some reason my distant neighbors battle snakes daily), and about a million deer. Deer eat everything. Rabbits do too, for that matter.

 Which brings me to phase one of my veggie garden project - building a fence. Oh wait. Back up. First came the sighting of the location, clearing of the grass, and leveling of the land. This phase has taken us about three months. Rule number one about starting a veggie garden. If you think you're going to have your garden up and running, with veggies galore in under a year, please continue to read on. I am on month three, and we are still pretty.much.nowhere.

 We do have a septic tank on this property, and by some highly technical methods determined a location for the garden, which hopefully would not coincide with the septic location. It went something like this: "This looks good - let's put it here".

 In that, I mean it's going to be at the top of the hill, and our thorough knowledge of septic tanks led us to believe that our builder probably did not put the septic tank on top of a hill. Right?
  This is the top of the hill. If that veggie garden isn't visually appealing, it will pretty much suck, as it is right next to the pergola where I drink a lot of wine and gaze out over where that garden will be.

 Next came grass removal and leveling. One very earnest and enthusiastic worker and his cousin set about on this phase. Within one day they changed their bid to labor per day, their work pace slowed down to a snail's pace, and their enthusiasm quickly waned. I fled the state and hid in New Orleans for a few days and fired them from there. This is a GREAT way to fire people! What's even better, he was happy to be fired. I call that a WIN WIN! Except, I was poorer in the pocket and my project was stalled.

 To the rescue came Jose - my yard guy. I swear, Jose is my favorite person on the planet. Within a day, all the grass was gone,and the land was leveled. Yay Jose!

Here's the spot - isn't it sweet?

Now I just need a fence.  And veggie beds.  And gravel.  And dirt.  And seedlings.

Seedlings.  I started a billion seedlings last month, and one cold snap ensured that not a single seedling came up.  So now, during my waiting game I've started again.  Only smaller this time.  I am don't normally start plants from seeds - I'm way too impatient for that, and this time I want some organic, non GMO plants - so seedlings it is.  Earth Fare is a great place to buy seeds that haven't been messed with.

Next up - the fence!  Who will build it, and when???