a long long time ago (five years ago) when i married my farmer and moved to the farm i had dreams of building a garden. i mean, we live on a farm. i have to have a garden, right?

well...first of all we lived in a single wide trailer that wasn't ours...no garden there.

then after we built our house i was already knocked up, so we were very busy finishing the house (which still isn't finished) which of course meant...no garden.

then spring rolled around and i had a six month old crazy infant on my hands...still no garden.

fast forward to the following spring, and wouldn't you know it...i was pregnant with sawyer. so naturally, no garden.

but this year - it's the year of the garden.

it all had to start with picking the perfect spot for my garden. this is no small task when the possibilities are immense. slightly overwhelming. we ended up picking a space close to the water source, because we're smart like that.

step one was excavating the space. luckily, what with living on a farm and all, we have proper equipment to make ease of the work...which basically means i didn't have to lift a finger.
at the same time we picked a permanent spot for our trampoline! we decided to dig it in because the insane wind storms we get out here on the farm have nearly torn it to pieces. we have literally, more than once, watched it get blown 300 yards from our backyard.

needless to say, kaye full approves. she can jump on and off at her leisure, and i don't have to worry about any accidents.

we'll need to sod around it to make it look pretty, but it's definitely getting the job done for now.

bonus - it's right by the garden.

so step one was excavating a space out of our side hill, below our backyard, and leveling a flat space.

then we went and loaded up some old railroad ties my farmer just happened to have laying around at his shop. my idea was to use the railroad ties to border the garden, but my farmer thought they would look neat as a retaining wall. he was right. they look great. 
the garden is going to look particularly awesome when we build the fence around it. we have to do this because we have a bit of a deer problem. as in...during one of my many nights awake with sawyer i just happened to look out the window and see at least 30 deer in our front yard. they chew the bark off our trees. we loath the deer.

so we'll be building a cute little fence...and by little i mean sturdy and tall enough to keep out those damn deer.  maybe something like this?
source
we finished our day working on the garden with me picking rock out of the bed and raking it smooth to ready it for geo-tech. (geo-tech? apparently it's supposed to keep the weeds at bay.)

we also picked and raked the path leading from our backyard down to the garden.
of course i went to pinterest for some garden path inspiration. here's where i landed. both seem pretty simple and mildly inexpensive. i can get on board with that. 
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high hopes, people. high hopes. we may just be enjoying fresh zucchini, broccolini, tomatoes, peppers...and maybe even a few strawberries. and let's not forget rosemary, basil, and cilantro. yum.

building a garden is not for the faint of heart. chainsaws, pickaxes, and thumb blisters required. (that's right...i got a blister.)