<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>Less than a year after moving into our new home on 25 hilly mostly-wooded acres, we were super excited to create our home garden and orchard. Because our house is built into a hill, our garden must be in our front yard. So it needs to be as beautiful as it is functional. We want a work of art that matches the natural look of our house while staying within our budget. </span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<img alt="Our House" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="64d57dec-11fc-437e-a46c-8c658e7ab3c4" src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/2019-10-22_08-50-33_576.jpeg" />
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<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>With much excitement, Birdie and I quickly started drawing up plans, dreaming of spirals and other organic designs from our permaculture book. As we started to think about materials though, we loved the look of corrugated metal and cedar raised beds so we quickly changed our designs to straight lines. Even with that limitation, I didn’t want simple squares or rectangles. Sunshine was dreaming of hexagons and octagons, but I was imagining a flow that almost seemed curvy. I designed interlocking ‘C’ shapes as the core design and mirrored them on both sides to create a garden layout that invites you to take a stroll. </span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<img alt="Initial Garden Plan" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="3e7f8f1a-0b6d-4a18-b45c-7b625cef0679" src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Garden%20Plan.jpg" />
<p>After additional measurement and refinement, we fell in love with this almost curvy, straight-lined beauty. There are open paths on the sides for going straight to the center while granting more leisurely access from the other sides. In the very center, we have room for a design feature. We initially talked about building just half of this symmetrical design the first year, but we couldn't resist the excitement of going all in from the start!</p>
<img alt="Garden Plan" data-align="center" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="c195a1cf-ab30-4227-ba28-0405d8869fa0" src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Garden%20Plan%202%20%281%29.jpg" />
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<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>With a design we loved, we thought we were all set, but as COVID-19 necessitated social distancing and businesses began to close around us, we started rethinking how we wanted to spend our money and even whether we would be able to get bulk soil delivered. We mapped out designs in our front yard, pulled up grass to get a better feel for our soil quality and tested out our new pick ax for rock removal. </span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>This additional planning time allowed us to continue to iterate on our design, and we landed on a natural design that we can build from materials on our land. We are using a combination of fresh cut trees and partially-rotted downed trees to make a few raised beds for our root vegetables and edge our in-ground beds. </span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>This garden will be a beautiful enhancement to our yard - a place where we can munch raw vegetables straight from the plant, feel grounded to the earth with our fingers in the soil and work together as a family. All that stands in the way from our bounty is rocks, Rocks and more ROCKS!</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
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