Fashionably Late to the (Veggie Garden) Party

I've been meaning to get a couple of veggie beds in for a while now. I even staked one of the plots out when I set up my strawberry bed. Now that we're past Memorial Day, when it's generally safe to plant, I have been feeling more motivated. And then I went and bought these the other day, which obviously need a home:

seeds!

So after several weeks of staring at the front lawn, and twice mowing the area I'd selected, I decided it was time to commit. My neighbor had offered to come over with his tractor and tiller attachment, but we never seemed to have the same 10 minutes available. Another friend offered the use of their small garden tiller, so on Wednesday I finally went to pick it up. On Thursday evening I did a quick go-round to scratch up the grass on the surface (and make sure that I could get the tiller to work).

ghost beds, barely scratching the surface. 

This morning I rallied, and put in a solid couple of hours raking the plots, edging, tilling, pulling big grass clods, turning with the fork, tilling again, raking, pulling small grass clods, raking, adding compost, turning with the fork, and raking again.

And look! My very own soon-to-be veggie beds! I'm so freakin' excited! The soil is in really good shape, so I'm fairly content with the couple of bags of compost I added. Next year I'll probably box them  in, but for now I can manage the in-ground beds.

two ~ 4 x 8 ft beds!

They certainly aren't perfect and will likely require a ton of weeding, but I have veggie beds! I plan to lay garden cloth and add woodchips to create a walkway around and between the beds and strawberry box. I also want to fence the area in. There are a lot of critters in the neighborhood and I don't have any interest in feeding them the good stuff.

This afternoon, after graduation, I threw in a couple of tomato plants that I picked up from the farmer's market (from the New Leaf Organics booth - one of my favorites), and tomorrow I'll get a bunch of the seeds in the ground. Maybe a little late in the season, but hey, at least they're in, right?