Michael has been focused on getting our garden back in shape from its 8 years of laying fallow. He carted trailer loads of compost and dug it in to improve the soil when we lived in St. Paul. Then we moved to Maine for 8 years and the quack grass took back its own. Last year we broke sod and planted a garden again, beating back the quack in what felt like a losing battle.

The main garden plot is in the middle left on this photo, which was taken in March. Yes, it mostly looks like another part of the pasture.

By this time last year, we had potatoes and onions in the ground. This year, we just finished spading up the garden as of yesterday.

Michael, posing for an action shot. We were both too covered in dirt to take photos while in progress. Although I worked with Michael digging, he is much faster than I am and spaded 3/4 of the garden in the time I did the rest.

We had piles of sand left over from the basement project, which Michael repurposed into garden soil improver. We tend toward heavy clay here.

The rototiller's first pass through spaded soil.

We removed weeds and grass as we went. Michael had "saved" a bunch of soil by hanging sod on the fence diagonals last spring. It took winter to kill the quack roots. They are now safely back in the bed, adding organic matter where it is sorely needed.

After the tiller.  Ready for planting! We will have rhubarb for pie again soon. — After the tiller. Ready for planting! We will have rhubarb for pie again soon.

Today we go in search of Red Pontiac potatoes (the Kennebec are easy to find) and other seeds to sow. We have onion sets already, but will save those for a day it isn't raining.

My garlic garden. I get to call it "mine" since I did the spading and planting on these small raised garden plots this past October.

For the bonus photo of the day: the garlic is up and looking healthy.