Breaking ground...

...And with a small prayer the ground is cut for the first time. 

 

It is a circle.  A 6 foot wide circle bed that will be the focal point of the entire garden.  Circles are sacred shapes and I saw my first circle garden at a very special place, Kaiwaka, New Zealand.  Ever since, I have wanted to create one of my own.  The middle of the yard just so happened to be the perfect size for a 3 ringed circle garden, with 2 foot paths and 3.5 foot beds (exactly how I would have made it anyway)  This diagram I found online will give you a general idea of what the garden will look like.  This one only has 2 rings. 

Heres how I did the measuring...

A string is tied to the center post and the radius' measured out on the string.  I pulled the string tight and walked in a circle, sprinkling flour onto the grass under the marks.  Once all the flour was down I could see where all the beds and paths would go.  I wasn't sure how I would transform the grass into garden beds, so I tried different combinations of tilling and pulling out chunks of grass and shaking off the dirt.  By the time the first ring was finished, I had decided that the tiller wasn't helping much.  The method I settled on was cutting out chunks of grass with the shovel, and shaking off the dirt back onto the bed.  No tiller, no tricks, 100 percent hand made veggie beds.  This method leaves me with a fine crumlby soil.  It takes a little more labor than the tiller method, but makes me happier with the results.  It also allows me to remove all of the wire grass roots.  Wire grass is the devil in a veggie bed.  It will spread underground and cause problems for years to come.  The hand shaking method removes 90 percent of the hated weed.  Luckily the soil under the grass has an amazing texture.  Not too sandy, not too much clay... a nice crumbly, humus filled loam.  I will definately be producing some top quality veggies using this soil as a starting point.  Thanks, dad, for growing luscious grass for the past 6 years!                   

   Marking out the directions of the paths... North, South, East, and West...

And in one day, the middle and the first ring are cleared of grass and mulched.  They are not finished, they will still have to be turned, composted, and nutrients added.  Until then, the leaf mulch will protect the soil from frost so the microbes can start doing their thing. 

Walla... a circle garden!