When we bought some land in the canyons 8 years ago, I always had this fantasy of growing my own flowers and vegetables. I had some luck in our San Luis home but that was waaaaaay smaller and fenced in. The only critters we had were a few squirrels and an occasional raccoon. Out here it’s just nutty! There are so many wild little creatures, frankly it can be a little scary. The dreaded three would be; the deer, the gofers, and yes, those cute little bunnies! Grrrrrr….So after planting hundreds of dollars worth of landscaping, apparently to feed all these guys, Bill and I just took a break from it all. On top of the fact that we had quite a large lawn that required a lot of water, which we soon saw wasn’t very environmentally conscious of us. So we let the lawn die off….but that’s another entry on my To Do list, to create some meandering paths.

So here is the beginning of our raised planter bed. We planted 3 bare root trees we got from Costco last weekend. Next step is to lay some chicken wire and get some dirt. My neighbor told me you can sometimes get free dirt on Craigs List so I’m going to check that out.

What I’ve learned so far.

Building a garden is a great way to get your children out of the house. It’s a wonderful setting for a conversation with the one you love and it’s a great teacher of patience.These are seeds I've collected over the years...they're probably no good anymore, but the possibility of them makes me happy!