Day 143

My wife gave me a list of the types of plants she wanted. Tomatoes and peppers were at the top of the list along with many different herbs and greens. We also wanted to attempt to get berries started. With three growing children and a large flock of birds, we figured planting as much as possible would be great as it would find a home somewhere on the farm. Even if some of our plantings didn't fully take, we knew that we would be able to give whatever popped up to the birds.

But we wanted to be happy too. This meant part of my research included optimal locations of vegetable beds, understanding different depths of soil, and possible pairings that might increase productivity. In our first summer, the garden was minimal. We had a few rows of lettuce and tomatoes, a tower of strawberries, and pots of potatoes. We got some output, but we honestly didn't really take care of it due to more pressing projects.

But now, with much more progress made, we felt it was time to put our newly scrapped backyard space to good use.

Now that we decided what we wanted to plant and completed some preliminary research on how we might be able to accomplish this, we had to map out what it might look like. Before removing tarps and officially starting the process, we mapped out the garden with paper and pencil.

The more we planned, the more ideas we had. These ideas would add on to or completely contradict the previous plan. When one idea made sense and felt right, we had to make adjustments because the new idea made previous ideas less than ideal. It went through a number of iterations, but eventually we came to a garden layout that seemed to make sense. But plans on paper and real life don’t always mesh. Maybe it was due to my poor cartography skills? Maybe I was a bit over-exuberant with how much I wanted to do right away? Whatever it was, the final map wasn't final at all. The “real” garden could only be finalized without a pencil and paper, but with blood, sweat, and tears.