How to Move a Garden

The back yard used to work well with vegetables in the back and a peninsula of flowers in the middle. Plenty of room for tables for parties on either side of the flower garden and room for the kids to play when they were young.

But, the trees grew up tall and cast the vegetable garden in shade. My husband often complained about the trees. Sure I planted them on the wrong side of the yard - nothing to be done but move the vegetable garden.

"You can't move a vegetable garden," he said.

"It's a lot easier than moving a 40 foot oak tree, " I said.

My husband had worked that soil for years, turning clay and builder's lousy topsoil into rich, crumbly compost augmented earth. Of course, he didn't want to start all over again. So we moved the vegetable garden. Enlisting the help of our daughter's fiancee, Zeke, and eking out a bit of work from our youngest, this is what we did:

First, we decided on the sunniest spot in the yard. Then, we staked out an area the size he desired. He cut a straight edge along one side.

We cut the turf in long, straight rows, undercutting the grass on each side of the row. Next, we cut horizontal lines so that the long strip of sod was divided into more manageable squares.

We pulled up the sod in neat squares and piled them beside the old vegetable garden.

Then, we dug up all the good soil in the old vegetable garden (down to clay) and transferred it to the new garden (now stripped of grass). We leveled it, mixing in some composted leaves.

Then, we laid the sod in 2 layers because the new garden was larger than the old garden.

I laid black plastic along the edge of the new garden to kill the grass and make a path. In a couple weeks, I'll take up the plastic and pile some newspaper along the path and top that with a layer of mulch.

We'll probably need to add more dirt, compost and some mulch as the soil settles.

It's all good. The drainage is better in the new spot and the tomatoes will get plenty of sun.