Gardening

The past few days have been lovely -- warm, breezy, wonderful! The boys and I are itching to get out in the yard. Our backyard has NO landscaping. Zero! Zip! Nada!!! Just lots of dirt, some big rocks, and 3 peony bushes. Last year we tore down all the trees, as they were dying or already dead, misshapen, and just plain messy and ugly. Now we need to put a fence up, which I hope to do soon (I have to draw out where we want it and go get a permit to do it).

After the fence is up, it's on to landscaping! I'm so excited, but realistically, I'm not sure we'll get a lot of actual landscaping done. I figure we need to start with trees and bushes (the big stuff), and that's going to get expensive. Calvin is hot to have a garden, so we also need to figure where to put that, and how to prepare the soil. He already got his seeds, even! We'll be trying carrots, watermelons, green beans, tomatoes, and lettuce. If anyone has any advice, website, and/or book recommendations, please pass them on! Can I move peonies around now? Should I do anything special to the dirt for raspberries? watermelons? carrots? Is there a Dummies Guide to Compost? HELP!!!