Here we go again - garden 2014, woohoo!

Ok, so it's time to get started once again - this time we want to have better soil.  The stuff we purchased last year (which was supposed to be primo soil for fruits and veggies) has the consistency of concrete... 

So we got a bunch of bags of steer manure (not as stinky as we thought it might be), excavated some old soil, and mixed the new stuff in.

And then did a little planting.

We convinced our gnome to sign another contract to protect the berries -he seemed pretty happy about it. Not sure if the bird in his hand wants to sit there all summer again, though: