Garden! or Dog For Sale

Well, that lasted a long time... Let me start at the beginning. This weekend I planted a garden. I was playing around on SproutRobot, realized once again that we have a ridiculously long planting season in this part of California, and decided to go for it and see what I could learn. 

SproutRobot is a handy site that lets you plug in your zip code for information on what, when, and how to plant vegetables.

The partially composted stuff-n-fluff that our dog had scattered around the yard seemed to make a good base/weed deterrent in the part of the garden that was not yet lasagna-ed. I picked up two 2 cu. ft bags of organic garden soil from the hardware store (for about $6.50 a bag if you're pricing it out). Then, I spread it out into three rows about 6' long by 2' wide by 3" deep. 

What bodies?? These are planting beds!

I planted parsnips, carrots, leaf lettuce, cilantro, arugula, radishes, and mesclun mix. Things dry out pretty quickly around here, so I also mulched over the top of them with some straw, and watered them really well. 

All tucked in and cozy

Oh, and I started another compost heap! This time waaay back in the corner away from the yard. No way could Sky reach through the fence and pull it out this time!

That bale of straw was a great investment!

It survived all day Sunday. This morning, I put Sky out while getting ready for work, like usual. When I went out to refill her water bowl, she had black feet! Urgh... I didn't put my beds far enough away from the wire fence. Within about fifteen minutes of being outside, she had reached through and stirred up the first few inches of one of the beds. But I could live with that, right? (I'm sure you've figured things out by now. Oh, Hindsight, my guileful foe!)

When I got home from work, I saw this...

*cry*

She managed to squeeze under the "gate" (a flap of wire fencing that I fold around the last fence post). This is the only section of the fence that I was not able to tie to the chicken wire on the ground, since I needed to be able to open it. The garden beds were all flung about, and the new compost heap had become the next layer of my lasagna garden. Oh... and she left me a lovely doggie surprise to top it off (I resisted taking a picture of that. You're welcome!). 

I have now wired an extra fence post to the bottom of my "gate" to make it less flexible, and sprinkled the ground generously with cayenne pepper, but this dog... this dog is so determined! I don't know how I can train her out of it since she only really gets destructive when I am not in the yard with her. (Here's a new internet meme! Passive Aggressive Pooch.) Unfortunately, I have to work! I'm so looking forward to the day when I can build something more permanent. 

I raked things back into place, more or less. Hopefully I'll still get a nice crop! Telling the plants apart will be a bit more interesting now. Can we just call it permaculture practice? Hehe.

Have you dealt with gardening with a dog before? How do you keep your hard work from being undone?