12:45 – Barbara is home. Colin and I are delighted. Both of us were so happy when she got home that we almost peed on the floor.
We’re taking it easy over the long holiday weekend. We did go out this morning to stake out the future garden area. At Barbara’s suggestion, we’re keeping it small to start with. We decided on a plot that’s 15×20 feet, 300 square feet, about 10 square meters, or about 0.007 acres. That’s not very large, but it’s large enough to grow more vegetables than we’ll eat. As Barbara said, we can always make it larger if we need to.
We put it on the left (south) side of the house as you’re facing it, with the near edge only four or five feet from the house. That way, if we fence it, which we probably will, we can use the side of the house as one side of the fence. The plot is sloped enough for good drainage, and gets full sunlight from morning to evening. Once we get it tilled, we’ll send off a soil sample to the agricultural extension folks to have it analyzed to determine what it needs in the way of nutrients, pH adjustment, and so on.