Breaking Ground

I started this garden from scratch, and so there was a lot of work to do before I could plant anything.  On this page I will talk about every step I took to  get to the point when I could actually put a seed in the ground.  I hope it provides you with some information and maybe a little inspiration.

Where to Start

When I decided to start a garden this year, I knew the first step would be finding the right spot.  I figured there were three main points I needed to consider;

Location- It had to be convienient to the house so I could access it easily
Sun- It had to get plenty of sunlight, the majority getting eight hours a day, but some spots could get as little as three
Chickens- I really wanted my chicken run to encompass most of the garden for bug control

Because the chicken coop and run were already established in the backyard, I knew I wanted the garden in that area.  The problem was that the run was on the north side of the house.  We watched carefully and determined that even though the area I was considering was on the north side, it was still getting plenty of sunlight.  So step one, check!  We had a location.  That's when we ran into problem number two.  There was a very large tree in the middle of my future garden.  After a lot of deliberation, we decided to take out the tree, mostly due to the fact that it was too close to the house anyway, and a bit of a fire hazard.  So my wonderful husband got out the chainsaw, and down came the tree.