Raised Beds or Razed Beds?

I'm hoping for the former. We've got a nice big back yard, as you've probably seen before. It's got more than enough grass for our crazy little puppy to run around in, and a heck of a lot of just plain rocky areas as well. We're going to turn one of the rocky areas into a raised bed vegetable garden this year, and this is the beginning of the process.

Here's the plan we found that we like: This Old House: Raised Beds

So, we found a spot where we're going to put it.

That looks good. It gets a lot of sun, especially in the summertime.

Winifred was helping, in her own way. After I raked and shoveled the rocks clear, I got to the landscaping fabric. And then I got to...more rocks? Yeah. There had been a layer of river rock back there and when the previous owners redid the yard, they just put more fabric and more rocks over the old rocks and fabric. Whee. So I pulled up both layers and got to the dirt.

There we go. I'm going to get a trenching shovel today and start digging out the frame shape pretty soon. I'm also going to get some of the wood at least and maybe lay the first course before too long. We'll see. It'll probably have to wait for the weekend, given the amount of work it's going to take just to get the first course put down. Once I do that, I think it'll go pretty quickly.

We also decided to do tile on the seat area around the box. It should help keep it from getting all warped and cracked over time, and make it a nice place for people to sit once we get that whole area done up properly.

So that's it for now, but things are going to start moving again.

Also, Winifred has been helping us with our floors:

She found an edge and just started going to town.

She's super effective. At first I didn't really want her doing this, but then I remembered this picture and the hours we spent on the floor:

Pulling that stuff up is a pain in the butt. If she wants to do it, I'm going to let her. It's a bit earlier than we'd planned, but it needs to be done and this is helping to convince us that we need to get on it sooner rather than later. It's about time that little girl started pulling her weight around here.

Thanks for reading!