A Happy Green Backyard Garden

We have been working hard to get our Happy Green Garden up and running. We moved into our new house in December and we have been anxiously waiting for spring to start getting the backyard prepped and ready for some yummy gardening!
We started our compost almost immediately after we moved in, and we mixed in a lot of the end of fall leaves with the dirt at the bottom of our hill to let it decompose on its own to make great dirt. I love that you can make DIRT better.

This is the backyard after we moved in.

The boards along the bottom of the hill

It has been a long process and we still have a ways to go – but we are getting close to planting! We stopped by the hardware store over the weekend and picked up the boards to build some beds for planting. We are doing it this way to section off the gardening area so my 2 year old will stay out a bit and also to give us 10 more inches of dirt above ground. With the help of my dad we put in the boards – using a fairly easy process. We leveled out the ground and added the boards, putting rebar stakes behind to hold them up. The weight of the dirt inside the bed will anchor them in on the inside. Our long bed is 48’ down and about 5’ wide. We are going to plant up and down in rows to maximize our space. We also added a bed to the hill that is 8x4’, anchored in the same way.





Small bed on the hill

We ordered our dirt – it seems so strange to buy dirt – but we want to make sure that we have a good foundation for our plants. We ordered 6 yards of blended soil – it has good compost already mixed in and will provide a great amount of nutrients for our garden. It will be delivered next weekend so we can fill in the rest of the beds and get ready to plant!
The great thing about living in California is that spring comes quickly! The last frost has come and gone and it is getting close to time to get the plants in the soil. We have a rainy week in the forecast – so that will be great for the soil and then we will start planting next week!