When you become a mom, and hold that little babe in your arms, there are a lot of things people will tell you. From the frightening (“Just wait till she’s a teenager!”) to the practical (“They grow so fast!”) to the downright irritating (“Enjoy every minute of it!”).

The thing that no one told me that’s been on my mind lately? Food. Namely, the consumption of it. No one ever warned me that that little babe who could be filled to the brim on a handful of Cheerios and a few spoonfuls of applesauce, would one day be asking me (at every. single. meal.) “Is there any more?”

With this piece of seemingly obvious information (Eat. Grow. Repeat.) fresh in my mind, I knew it was time to expand the garden. Our little patch of dirt that once grew enough for our family, our freezer, our friends, and the food bank, is now not even growing enough for our family. The choice was obvious. Either resign my gardening efforts to simply being enough for snacking and a few supplementary meals, or expand. We voted to expand.

Complicating matters, though, are our plans to do…Something…with the garage to turn it into a studio for the Sweetie Pie. We haven’t yet figured out whether it’s going to be rebuilt where it stands, or if it will be moved to a different part of the property. This uncertainty keeps us from doing anything too permanent or expensive with the garden, because it might just have to be undone in a few months’ time.

After much thought and discussion, and bringing in a few friends to contribute their valued opinions, we came up with an exciting solution: a raised bed along the south side of the house. When I planned out the veggies this year, the tomatoes, peppers, and basil were left homeless. I figured I’d find places to tuck them in here and there. But this solution is going to be so much better. I can hardly stand it.

The Sweetie Pie was more than happy to put in the labor digging out the existing shrubbery that he has cursed for ten years. They were fine examples of native ornamental shrubs, but they were in a terrible location, growing rangy and gangly all over the driveway, scratching cars and poking out eyeballs. We kept whacking them back until they were mere stumps of what they should have been. They obviously needed new homes. Thankfully, some gardening-inclined friends were grateful to take the mature plants off of our hands. “Instant landscaping!” she cried. The Sweetie Pie was grateful that someone wanted them and he didn’t have to dispose of them. Win-win.

The kiddos helped out with the digging, and then the Sweetie Pie leveled things out and laid the blocks. All that’s left is adding some aesthetic details and filling it up. Fingers crossed for this weekend. These tomatoes aren’t going to wait much longer.