And so it begins...

We have begun planning for the chickens and vegetable garden. We’ve plotted out where the raised beds are going to be: we are doing 4 4’X4’ beds using the Square Foot Gardening method. Mr. Man is spending this weekend tilling the soil where the beds will sit so that we can keep weeds down to a minimum.

Later today we will head up to Farmer D’s to pick up the ready to assemble cedar frames and some of his exquisite organic soil—we want to give the garden the best start we can, especially considering our inexperience. We are planning on planting tomatoes, beans, carrots, broccoli, potatoes, onions, garlic, spinach, eggplant, squash, beets, lettuse, pepper (both sweet & jalapeno), and strawberries, as well as basil, thyme, and several other herbs. Guess we’ll be spending a lot of time in the backyard this spring/summer. Hopefully, we will be rewarded with fresh vegetables for ourselves and, if we’re lucky, our friends and neighbors.

We are also looking for the perfect coop plans to purchase so that Mr. Man can practice his carpentry skills. There’s a great website at http://www.backyardchickens.com/ that has great information about raising chickens and coop designs, and we have spent many an evening trying to decide what we like best. We want something relatively small, but with adequate space for 3 chickens, and it has to be attractive. The coop will be located in the area at the back of the yard, where the vegetable beds will be. We intend to fence off this entire area to keep Marley out of the garden—he will eat anything and I don’t plan on sharing my tomatoes with him.