Shyla, Shyla, Quite Contrary

I was a frustrated woman.  We live in a subdivision, so all my dreams of chickens, goats, and gardens have to go through a hesitating process.  About ten years ago, my husband, sons, and our neighbor put in a two raised-bed gardens, to the back and between our houses, each about 3X6 ft square.  We own one of them and have simply tomato-ed it out for the past decade, poor thing; it desperately needs a change of roots and I need somewhere else to plant my tomatoes.  In truth, I am a "baby gardener." My husband has been the faithful tenderer of our little plot of soil for these many years, and I would just cook up what we reaped, wishing we had more.  But this past year I was the one who planted, watched over, and gathered from it - and I really liked it.

So this summer, I started looking for a new place to live.

After dragging my husband from one old house with some land to another, and another, and another, (Read: much work required in order to make it what we'd like) over numerous weekends, he asked me over after-search coffee, "What will it take for you to be happy with the house we have? A garden?"

Yes.


And so he hired someone to build me a garden.  The animals just aren't going to happen, I know; but I'm grateful that I can purchase eggs from other local hen-owners.  I'm still hoping a goat's milk source might open up somewhere (and realistically, that's more to my liking than the thought of twice daily milkings.)  But this summer 2012, I will have the garden I have waited for and wanted! It was an early Christmas present that will continue to give for a long time to come - perfect for me.  Thank you, Honey! I have some time to lay out a design with forethought and intentionality.  I've ordered seed catalogs tonight and perused a few online as well. My smile as I'm writing this is one of satisfaction and excitement.

Here are a few pics.
1) "The crew" spreading out our organic soil
2) A view from the street, what a passer-by will see (Yes, the bold orange door was also part of my season of changes)
3) This was work we had done near the front and I have three blueberry bushes planted on that back edge
4) One of the finished product (from my upstairs' bedroom window.)



I'll post an update this summer to tell you how my garden grows!  Oh, and those are lovely gardenia bushes planted between my garden and the street... heavenly.

Linked to Simple Lives Thursday and Works For Me Wednesdays.