The Start of the New Garden

While I had some time off this year I decided it was a good time to start cleaning up the large unused area behind the garage and start doing making a serious garden.  I was inspired by our success this summer with our sweet corn and sunflowers, and we always grow decent tomatoes.  I was also inspired by our neighbor Jack and his extensive gardening for selling at the farmers markets and all the people that he works with in the area who are really creating a network of locally grown food and using it at home and in their products.  As you can see, even after some work this fall, the space has a long way to go, which is why I wanted to put these photos up.  The space is about 33'x33' and has good sun (especially since I have done extensive trimming to the tree in the back.)  I have started clearing weeds and removing some of the pea gravel, with which the whole space is covered.  Hopefully we can have good growing conditions despite the gravel and weed problems.  Once I can till it next fall, I will try to level it some more too.  Current plans are to have tomatoes, at least 4 rows of sweet corn, some giant sunflowers, and a good sized pumpkin and cucumber patch.  I'm going to stick with things that I know grow well here in Utah.  I don't expect any more progress until next March, since everything got covered with about 6" of snow the day after these photos were taken.  Next step will be ordering seeds!