“Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.”

—Rudyard Kipling

Earlier this spring I spent some time digging up more of our backyard to use the leftover pea gravel from creating our patio last summer. At the beginning of spring I always feel energized and ready to work outside. With the pandemic beginning early in the spring here, there was also a sense of national camaraderie around victory gardening, although I can't say that was really my intent. But there is a sense of stewardship that comes along with composting, growing our own food, attracting pollinators with wildflowers, and creating a wonderful space for spending time in outside of our home.

I decided to build two raised beds, and filled the bottom with compost and then covered that with a mix of topsoil and raised bed mix. I also installed a rain barrel with a gutter diverter, but have mostly used that for watering flowers in our front yard. Katey and I decided to grow tomatoes, zucchini, musk melon, broccoli, romaine lettuce, and some herbs: basil, sage, parsley, and sweet mint. We also cut out a section for a midwestern wildflower mix so we could cut flowers to put inside all summer.