April 21st, 2026

 That looks like a hard working hand, eh?  Well it's my hand and it is, indeed, filthy.  And the reason that my hands were so very dirty was that Tim and I were working on the "future garden" over the weekend!  

The so-called "future garden" had kind of reached mythical proportions. It was sort of one of those things that we day dreamed about but were beginning to believe was never truly going to happen.  Sort of like winning the lottery or flying to the moon!

Should I back up and remind everyone about the "future garden"?  Ok, quick time out then.  In front of our house is a walled courtyard. 

For whatever unknown reason, the people who lived in the house before us created a very nice pavered area on one side of the courtyard but not the other.  We have since cluttered up the side that has the pretty pavers very nicely with wooden seats and tables, a grill and a load of potted plants.  We have pretty much ignored the other side of the courtyard because we have always been working on the inside of the house, one project after another for literally years.

Last year (I think) I got so fed up with the gravel and sand and awful looking weeds and scraggeldy stuff on the non-pavered side that I shoveled up buckets of gravel and spread it in the driveway (which is also mostly gravel and shells) and pulled/dug/yanked and cursed the weeds and whatever the heck else was in there, out.  I wasn't 100% positive what we were going to put in there, but I knew it was NOT going to be the crappola that already existed.  Which left only a decent hedge on one side and what looked like a desert on the other.

Tim and I gave it a great deal of thought, first leaning toward one idea and then another. We knew we wanted a garden of some sort so we referred to it as the "future garden", very hopefully. Meanwhile, we attempted, repeatedly to "amend" the soil.  But since the "soil" was actually just sand, it didn't work.  Over and again, we would amend and plant and the plants would immediately keel over and die.  It was all very sad.   

Somewhere along the line the idea of a raised bed garden came up.  Not sure who said it first, probably Tim. He is the sort of person who comes up with good ideas.  I did some reading about raised beds and agreed that this was probably The Answer.  I left the actual construction of the beds to Tim as that is NOT in my wheelhouse and I focused my research on how best to have a successful raised bed garden here in Florida.

Turns out that prepping the bed prior to the dirt being loaded in is key!  After reading copious amount of information, I began saving paper towel and toilet paper rolls (as this is organic material that easily breaks down) cutting them up and stuffing them into a big old garbage bag in the utility room to save.  I also saved stacks of newspapers and multiple bags of the Shred in Tim's office.  This was a great start.  I knew when the day finally came, I would be ready!

That day came on Saturday.  We were up bright and early and Tim was building the raised beds.  It was a sunny gorgeous day that turned hot very quickly with the sun beating down so hard that the sweat was running into our eyes as we worked. No Bueno!  Tim had the smart idea to set up our Canopy over the worksite.  The actually setting up took a bit of time and work itself but once it as done, Ahhhhh! Much better!

There is a curve you can see in the courtyard wall that made construction tricky, but it all got sorted out.    Once the beds were fully constructed and secured to the ground, I immediately started emptying in the carboard rolls, followed by layers of newspaper and then wetting all of that down.  Next up was loading in the bags of soil that we found, ON SALE (woohoo) months ago.  Who knew that dirt would be so heavy!   We really got our exercise.  Each bag got dropped randomly in the first bed, cut open and then emptied.  I laughed out loud when I realized that all of those bags, at least 8 of them probably more(I forgot to count), barely made a dent. 

So I swept up and we put the tools away, threw away the garbage and binned the recycle and I assumed that we might head back to the garden center the upcoming weekend for more bags-o-dirt to finish filling at least that first bed.

To my great surprised yesterday a huge truck from Home Depot pulled up and dropped off a pallet of soil and compost!  Wow!  Tim anticipates me ;)

Gosh! I am so excited! It's like Christmas Morning for me right now.  I cannot wait to get out there and open one of those bags of compost so I can work it into the soil, then another bag of soil followed by more compost, etc.  Woohoo!

I think I'm going to just concentrate on ONE bed at a time.  Let's get the first one completely prepped, then get some plants/flowers in and see how they do.  If they do well, then I'm on the right track and I can just repeat the same process however many other times necessary for however many other beds we have.  If, however things do not go well, then I can figure out what went wrong and fix it before I spend beaucoup bucks foolishly!!

My hope is to find colourful bee and butterfly friendly plants and flowers, hopefully fragrant ones as well, that tolerate full sun coz that is a doggone sunny side of the courtyard! The canopy cannot live there forever guys.

The long range plan is that once all the beds are complete, then I can put landscape fabric down in the "walkway", topped with gravel and stepping stones of sorts.  Tim already put in a watering system so I think we are nearly done. NEARLY DONE!

I'm ready to get out there and get filthy all over again today!   Dirt for a glorious cause! My mother would be proud.