Today we started the nasty task that has awaited us all along: we started excavating the part of our round bed that was crushed by construction. Over the winter, a pile of construction debris sat on top of this area. Over the soil now is a spill of sand probably 6 inches deep. The backhoe must have pushed the edging bricks into the ground as well. It’s not an impossibly large area, just 1/4 of our total round bed but it’ll be pretty close to “real” work, not the let’s-pretend-we’re-farmers kind of work we’ve done ’til now. That’s why we’re breaking the task up.

Today we just want to remember where the edges of the garden bed used to be. We measured other parts of the bed and a good estimate seems to be that the distance between the edge of the central sunflower bed and the edge of the exterior bed is about the length of my favorite hoe. Using this guideline, we used the spade to dig a few exploratory holes. Sure enough, we were able to find most of our “missing” bricks and edging material.

That’s about all we did today in our 20 minutes. We collected some of the bricks but other bricks we left sticking half out of the ground. Now we know where the bed is and we can start to dream and imagine what we’ll grow inside.

Addendum: I forgot something else that I did, something that I bet I’ll pay for tomorrow. I “rolled” a stone, roughly 1 foot in diameter, off the bed and I carried another oddly shaped puddle of concrete, both of which had been uncovered during the barn’s construction and both of which had come to rest in our round bed. We still don’t have a really firm idea what we’ll do with those stones but for now, they’re resting near the asparagus in the “orchard.”

Speaking of asparagus: two of our new asparagus plantings have sent up tentative, fragile stems. I am quite happy because frankly the crowns didn’t look TOO prosperous when we planted them.

Today’s 20 minutes largely involved seeds.

At the center of our round bed, we traditionally plant sunflowers. We like the strong “vertical interest” that sunflowers add to our largely flat yard. Not to mention the color. We keep the sunflowers from falling over with a length of chicken wire supported by a couple metal posts. The wire used to be the frame for our compost pile. Sometime soon I’ll write about the fancy copper gate / trellis I’m going to build for the sunflowers — I’ve been planning it and scavenging materials for it literally for years!) Sunflowers are also a sentimental favorite because my Grandma grew them.

We bought a package of sunflower seeds a few years back and every year since we’ve simply saved the seed heads and consolidated the volunteers that grow elsewhere in the yard. We always get enough to share a few with the wildlife. This year there were a large number of seedlings near the back of our yard, a good 25′ from where we plant the sunflowers. I figure a squirrel made off with a seed head and only ate through half of it. We made a few holes and transplanted our seedlings over to the area. Then I blanketed the area with the leftover seed from last year. We just collect the seed heads from the sunflower in an old bushel basket and set it aside in our basement. The heads become very dry and are easily crumbled. To minimize the number of squirrels at least who eat the seed, I spread a few generous handfuls of dried blood. This won’t keep away the birds but I hope they have better sources of nutrition by this time in the season.

I also spread a bit of the grass seed I bought. I had stored many items from the old barn (including much of the salvageable wood from the barn itself) under a tarp in the yard and this killed a nice broad swath of grass. I realize it’ll take several attempts to re-seed it but I wanted to get started. I realize now I didn’t do all the things one’s “supposed” to do when planting grass seed: I didn’t rake up the soil; I didn’t water the seed… I won’t be losing too much sleep over it though.

This doesn’t sound like much but I swear this took 20 minutes!