We were planning to level and fill the garden beds this weekend. On Friday, we had soil and compost (we’re doing a 2/1 ratio) and peat moss delivered.

On Saturday we did a bunch of other yardwork (picking up sticks, mowing, putting soil and seed over patches that needed it, and weeding), and got to working on the garden Sunday.

We went to Home Depot to buy perlite and plywood to put down under the skid steer loader so it would not tear up the yard (as much) when we drove it back to the garden beds.

At first we tried to dig up the ground with the bucket we used to move snow, but that didn’t work,

so we switched over to the bucket we have that is specifically for digging.

I’m glad we have that bucket! Our soil is full of rocks, and we even found some concrete (WTF) and we never would have gotten the work done in the same amount of time if we only used shovels (I am really bad at using a shovel).

It took about three hours to dig out the soil and grass (and put it in the compost pile) then try to level out the soil/rocks left behind to put the beds in. The first one took a lot more finagling to get it level than the second.

And the funny part is, because of the slope of our yard, they don’t look level from certain spots!

But I swear they are level. Well, pretty level. Ha.

After we got them level we took some of the grass we’d put in the compost pile and filled in the gaps around the beds.

Then we called it a day because we were over it! We’ll have to fill them next weekend.