The weather is changing and the daffodils are blooming, signaling late winter and spring soon to be upon us! The weather change has also been a signal to me that I need to get moving on my project and get everything in order so that I can build my raised bed and get ready to start planting!

First, I needed to figure out how I need to prep the site for my garden bed, then I needed to find the right kind of soil to fill my bed with. I searched a few different places to find steps for preparing the site and determined that I needed to clear the site of crass and weeds, aerate the soil, put down woodchips to help provide nutrients for the soil, and add cardboard on top to prevent weeds from coming through yet still allowing for worms to enter the garden.

Woodchips in base of garden bed Cardboard in bottom of raised garden bed

Once the garden bed was prepped I needed to figure out what kind of soil I needed and where to get it. I found an amazing website that had a basic soil combination for a vegetable garden and a soil calculator to figure out what you needed for your specific garden!

If you want to calculate the soil you need for your garden follow the link below!

Soil Calculator

Once I figured out the soil I needed I looked into a garden center that would provide bulk soil so it would be more cost effective. I decided to go to Garden Works as I am a member there, and I could purchase my seeds from there! We picked up the base soil for the garden, which was a mixture of top soil and compost, next trip I will be getting more compost and some rich potting soil to mix in.

Raised garden bed with soil

While we were at Garden Works, my daughter and I went inside to pick our some seeds to plant. We used the chart that helped us decided what will grow that is planted in late winter and early spring, we then decided from that what vegetables we like to eat to make sure we are growing food we like! The weather dropped again today so we will wait until this cold spell ends to start planting our seeds! Stay tuned!