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???