Before: Urban Organic Vegetable Gardening--Making Our First Raised Bed

I'm waiting for husband Kurt to return from the hardware store with the stakes and rat wire we need put up around the raised bed we made yesterday; then we can plant the six broccoli, two cauliflower, and three lettuce plants we got yesterday. It doesn't look that impressive in the pics now--it's only about 4 ft by 8 ft and 2 ft deep--but we worked hard yesterday moving our brush piles, compost, and soil to clear a good spot with good soil. Moving that whole pile of branches was very Cool Hand Luke.

We mixed our own backyard dirt with some of our own leafy compost and "dairy compost" from The Natural Gardener. Kurt originally made that wood sled thing to haul mulch around the front yard, but yesterday we mixed soil and compost on it: I think it was about 60 percent dirt and 40 percent compost. We're really kind of winging it, but that's part of the fun.