Digging Out The Beds and Making Fluffy Soil

The first veggie-garden is complete. My four-year-old son, Paddy, and I shoveled two trenches about one foot down and 20 feet long, sifted the sticks and rocks out of the dug-out dirt (we used some chicken wire draped over two workhorses; the wire caught the rocks and wood but let the fluffy dark soil sift through), filled the trenches back in and now they're ready for turnips and beets.

We worked compost into rows for kale, broccoli and brussels sprouts ...

... and set aside room for three tepees for beans, which we'll make from some massive branches that a white pine next to my house shed this winter. We made three big hills for spaghetti squash and cleared spots for flowers, including a small patch of giant sunflowers. We transported some wild raspberry vines we found in the woods to a corner near wild low-bush blueberries that we found on a hike and dug up and planted at the end of last year, and we are anxiously waiting to see if they took. ... These are days when I do not have to read in bed at night because I just lie there thinking about the garden.