My wife and I will shortly be moving into a new house. This house has nice side section on the side that is fenced off and I think will make a good vegetable garden, so I figured I’d keep a project log.
There are a couple of facts I need to make the reader aware of
1) Here is how this area looks now:

As you can see, it has been pretty neglected and left to run to seed.
2) The closest I have ever been to growing things has involved an animal-shaped pottery and some slimy seeds (http://www.chiapet.com/index.php/original-chia-pet). Since when it comes to growing things I am a complete dummy, it should come as no surprise that I will be using this book:

To guide me along.
My ultimate goal when finished is to have a garden of different types of vegetables (and maybe some fruit here and there) to supplement our groceries, help us eat healthier and make things more convenient than having to run to the store all the time for different items.

Its as good as walking into a clinic and getting some physical therapy, seriously its that good and no im not joking its amazing. Not kidding its one of the best thing I have ever done in my life. Getting physical therapy is something that I have wanted to do for a long time but just couldnt afford, and better yet going out and getting something like IV therapy Scottsdale is a dream for me but eating healthy is gonna have to do for now!

The first step (and most likely the hardest) is clearing out this area. Complicating things is that there is no telling what is hidden in the overgrowth, so until I clear the space out I will list the “treasure” I find each day.

DAY 1
TOOLS:
1 Gardening hoe (no jokes!)
1 Garden Fork
Based on the images above, I made the assumption that everything was dirt from the shed to the far fence. However, once I started, this is what I found instead:

Bricks and paving stones!

It might be hard to see above, but click the image to see the large size – there are bricks and paving stones covering much that area. So, I will need to pull most of these up before I start planting. I will probably leave a small area for a path and place to put a small table and chair under the awning.
Even with the little surprise, I was able to accomplish what I planned for today – I cleared as much of the overgrowth from the fenced in section as I could and enough on the other side to allow both gates to open and close freely.
GOAL: Clear out fenced in section of overgrowth
Status: Mostly Complete, with a surprise!
Treasure: A 5ft long post hole digger(handles intact and metal in excellent shape), bricks/paving stones, a decomposing Croc, and some empty aluminum cans, vintage indeterminate
OTHER THOUGHTS: I should have brought a large blade straight edged and a curved edge shovel and a couple of shears/loppers of various sizes. Those will be included next time as I go to work on the saplings and brush that has sprung up in and around this section of the garden.

Planted Raised Flower Bed

The goal of this project was a cheap and easy design of a do it yourself raised flower bed. The benefits of a raised flower bed are better soil drainage so that the plant’s roots aren’t in compacted, water logged soil, better control of soil mixture, and extended growing seasons since raised beds warm up sooner in the spring, and stay warmer longer in the fall than traditional flower beds. This was a very quick project to set up, I think we spent more time wandering around Lowe’s than we did actually putting the container together. You can easily go buy a prefab raised flower bed for about $100. The frame itself, plus the landscape fabric to put under it to keep weeds out, cost us less than $60. We haven’t bought any soil or plants to put in it yet, those are coming in a few weeks. This was much more of a spontaneous idea.