Fall in the Garden

I've done some gardening in the past, and I remember that it was hard work. But I really wore myself out on Sunday. First, I created a bed for flowers, laying down newspaper then mulch to kill the grass. Inspired by the butterfly bushes, this is a purple flower bed so I planted Iris, Allium, and crocus, plus mixed daffodils for contrast.

At this point, my knees, back, and hands were sore. But I couldn't stop. I'd actually been putting off the garden day for weeks (to do silly little things like work all day and tile the bathroom floor).

My next step was to create 16 square feet of soil, according to the recipe in Square Foot Gardening. Okay, this is hard work. First I hauled about 350 lbs. of soil ingredients into the yard, then I dumped them all together and mixed them up with a shovel and hoe. Sounds so much easier than it is, especially when you don't do it every day.

In the end, D. and I shoveled the soil into the 4' x 4' bed we built:

In the spring, we'll do this three more times (ouch! ouch! ouch!), but we only need one now in the fall for the most important crop: garlic. We're going to plant two varieties - Music Pink (hardneck) and Inchelium Red (softneck). We really hope that with this good soil, full sun, and TLC we'll get a garlic crop out of it. But even if we don't, we love to eat the garlic chives that pop up in the spring. Yum!