How To Grow Edibles Amongst Goatheads And Pea Gravel...Sorta'.

Digging in sand, clay, rock and mountains of goatheads, is not exactly very easy.  A lot of people have just said to burn the evil seeds, but it doesn't quite work as well as people suggested.

Trust me.  We did it.  THREE TIMES!  The bottom of your shoe will still look a bit like this if you live in our house.

That is after burning.  Three times.  And shoveling, shoveling, raking, shoveling, and more.  We've given up.

Oh.

And the bottom of this shoe is after walking around in areas that have seen quite a bit of traffic.

On a good day.

So, after three summers, three burnings and endless shoveling and raking, we turned to defeat for a garden.

Until Tsunami brought us the pumpkin and pinto bean seeds.

*sigh*

With the fact that the pumpkin keeps growing and the pinto bean survived, we decided to take our cue and build a large raised bed based on the inspiration of Ana White.

This was her plan.

We also had to consider that we've seen squirrels, groundhogs, skunks, rabbits, bats and prairie dog's on our property over the years.  There's other animals as well, but they're not exactly a threat to our vegetation.  I don't think the local coyote family is interested in my tomatoes.

Yes, Mama J, be careful on your walks if you take them late at night.  There are coyotes living around here and have been seen on the street.

And yes, I gave you your nickname.  <3

Gotta' get this train back on the track.

A raised garden bed was our only solution.  And a tall one.  That was protected underneath by the critters in the area.

Guess I better start thinking about aerial protection.

Our Moose Dog?

That will work for now.

So I brought out the camera, a soda and Li'l Sausage to the front patio where we witnessed some amazing action by Bad Boy.

*get your head out of the gutter*

First, we started with untreated cedar fence pickets and freshly cut red wood stakes thanks to Lumber Jack across the street.

And we laid out and staked down some chicken wire.

Correction, POULTRY NETTING according to Lowe's.

*rolls eyes*

It's chicken wire.

Of course, Bad Boy worked on trying to clear the area of as many goatheads as humanly possible.  That took an hour.  And made...SOME progress...I suppose.

We paused for a cute picture of The Literary Musician.

Followed by some of the most epic Father/Son pictures of a lifetime.

Melt.

Swoon.

Collapse.

Giggles.

Falls down dead from being Love-Stricken.

All while Bad Boy built this:

Three times and carried it this way three times.

Stack 'em up, Bad Boy!

Stake 'em down and screw 'em in.

And do that about 1,569,128 times to come to this end.

Fill it up with some soils and fertilizer.

And WA-LA!

We let that sit for the evening, worked on some other projects around the house, and yesterday, when Tsunami and Deebo were here for the day, we planted the plants.

We've got here the Sun Gold Tomato plant, the tiny Roma Tomato plant that is struggling to survive, the New Mexico Green Chile plant and the Pinto Bean.  On the right end, we threw in the limped over parsley and Tsunami threw in some herb seeds for good measure.  We'll see if they do anything.

Directly under where I took the above picture from is our little hill with the pumpkin vine.

It's not a big hill.

It's not a big vine.

It's not a big raised bed at six feet by four feet (outside measurements).

However, we're doing our best and we'll see how the pumpkin grows.

Let's just hope that it does well and I can control it somewhat from knocking over all the other plants.


*wonders if pumpkins can grow over the edge of the planter*


*laughter ensues of the image of the garden bed being decorated like a Christmas tree covered in pumpkins*