Two weeks ago at the Carrboro Farmers' Market, they were giving away free tomato seedlings to children. Aidan and I picked up a Sun-gold cherry tomato seedling as well as a beautiful little basil plant. Building a garden for Aidan and I is something that I have wanted to do for a while--so this weekend, WE DID IT.
Here is Aidan the morning before the Farmers' Market, explaining his Van Gogh rendition of a "tower." He loves painting and drawing, and puts me to the test asking me to draw everything from tigers to toothbrushes. He recently told me that my best attempt at a horse did not look like a horse, "Mommy that looks like a person. I dont think you are good with drawing horses." Thanks, Aidan haha.
If you look just beyond Aidan's easel, you will see our backyard.
This is Phase 1--basically a little piece of yard untouched for over a year.
So, Thursday afternoon, with gloves, shovels and rakes in hand we started attacking the backyard. I say attack because that is literally what we did. We pulled up weeds, raked up straw and leaves and dug up more rocks than I ever knew were in our yard. By Thursday night we were exhausted! Friday afternoon we repeated the process over again, Aidan told me later that night, "Working with rocks and leaves is hard work! I was getting sweating and hot!" Too cute.
Friday night we planned out the next step--Phase 2 would be to build a raised garden bed. We found what seemed to be a good plan for one online and set off for Lowe's. We bought cedar planks, screws and stakes and then (finally) called it a night.
The next evening, Gordie/PopPop (my stepdad) came over and helped Aidan and I to put our garden bed together. Needless to say, Aidan was fascinated with the power drill. Aidan was a great helper and within no time, Aidan and Gordie had the garden bed built and put outside. Now all that was left to do was make the actual garden!
I am now a firm believer that if Aidan and I can make a garden, then anybody can do it. After gathering different tips from friends, online, and other gardeners, Aidan and I set out for Lowe's again today, this time to buy everything we needed to finish up the garden. We already had our plants, we bought them from a local woman in Cary--we just needed soil and compost. Wheeling around Lowe's with one of those flatbed carts was the highlight of Aidan's day, he also (to my amazement) actually was able to push it with 16 bags of compost on it!! (Hello NFL! haha)
We got home and began transporting the bags of soil from the front yard to the bag by way of Aidan's wagon, Im sure we looked like a pretty funny pair pulling those bags of soil in a wagon. Then, the dumping, mixing, dumping, mixing was next. It took a while, but eventually all the soil was mixed and we were ready to plant our plants!
If one part of the whole experience was Aidan's least favorite, it was this part. Once we got past planting the blueberry plants (which he, oh so slyly, found and put on the cart at Lowe's) Aidan's interest in this slow process was approximately zero. He did however like watering the plants afterwards. While I planted Aidan played Pirates with the tomato stakes we had just bought :)
By the time it was all said and done at 8 pm tonight, Aidan and I had planted three tomato plants, one green pepper plant, basil, oregano, cilantro, two cucumbers, blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries. We also got a weed guard down (mulch will just have to wait until tomorrow) as well as a netting to protect our baby plants from all the deer we have around here!
So, without further ado, Aidan and I present to you our garden!!!!
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