"Future garden plans" as in hopefully the very near future ... because Saturday I got my seeds started indoors. I'm anxious to hear that they have sprouted! (Hopefully Jon is watching them.) Not too anxious though, because so far there is nowhere to plant them outside.

So far in our nearly-a-year of marriage, my role is generally the brainstormer and Jon is the decision-maker. As in, I suggest and he vetoes. When he stops vetoing, we have both won since I don't suggest things I don't like. (This has been working great, although we might have to put off having children indefinitely on account of not being able to name them. We had that conversation once and my several suggestions were met with several vetoes.) In the case of the garden plans, I have an idea but have dumped on Jon the responsbility of figuring out how to do it.

The first problem is the approximately 40 metric tons of broken concrete splewed across the backyard poorly masquerading as a retaining wall. The second problem is that among our 4 willing arms, we only have 2 strong ones to get rid of said concrete mess. Not my problems since no amount of girl pushups can fix it. Here's my idea:

This view from the deck faces east, showing the backyard. There's a lot of space. There's also a lot of shade, thanks to the mammoth cottonwood tree.

That light stripe at the back of the yard is the "retaining wall" made of broken cement chunks. In its current state, it's more of a pile. A long pile. With shrubbies (aka deformed trees) growing out of it. It separates our yard into "yard" and "stripe of yard that used to be the alley." We're more into the idea of growing fresh vegetables than maintaining a cement pile uselessly dividing our yard, so it all has to go! That's right. Shrubbies and concrete all need to be removed and the idea is to replace it with a retaining wall of raised beds to use as a garden. To make the alley leftovers make sense at the fenceline (or at least make use of the space) we're imagining a shed in the corner back there.

If that doesn't make sense, it's because it doesn't quite make sense to me yet either. Think something along these lines with boxes on the top level and the bottom level:

If the next people who live in this house aren't interested in growing vegetables, they can just fill it with hostas. Or cement chunks.