Comida Para Alma=Food for the Soul

While in marriage preparation, I was encouraged by the priest who was celebrating our marriage to take up a hobby. His suggestion, being the one who tills the soil at St. Michael's abbey, was gardening, because it was something that is not only hard work, exercise, but also can beautify the home and bear fruit (literally). Not until I started gardening did I fully understand this. There's something about pulling weeds that is such good penance, I often feel that with each weed I pull, it's like pulling the weeds from my own soul. Since then, it's been a goal of mine, to learn to garden, specifically building a vegetable garden in our yard. So we finally did it!I wanted to show how for anyone interested in creating something like this:

We opted for a raised garden, which is easier than digging up tons of dirt and replacing with the filler.

Fortunately, my husband and father-in-law are quite handy, so they constructed the frame of weather-treated wood, 12" high and 3 feet wide is the important sizing info.

I layed down some organic, biodegradable weed blocking mats on the bottom.

Then came the natural liner, which will break down to produce some good natural compost. We used a nice collection of leaves and branches from our yard.

Next, a whole lot of good ol' smelly maneur! Mina was watching saying, "Stinky."

A final thick layer of compost to top it off...

And voila!

Can't wait to reep the fruits of our labor, and eat them!