Transplanting and bed extension, part 2.

I originally started with the bed below.  It seemed adequate for something I had no idea about.  However, the more I read about the space that tomatoes, and especially watermelons, really need, the more I knew we had to expand.  I set out to buy some pavers and soil, and the rest was history.

This project took a lot longer than I had orignally planned, because I kept raising my expectations of what I wanted accomplished.  First, I simply wanted to make the bed bigger.  Well, that's easy: rip off lawn, add pavers, done.

Well, that wasn't the case.  It made sense to have this look as aesthetically pleasing as possible, and that meant making sure everything was leveled.  I achieved this by taking measurements on top of each paver, as well as in between, in order to get a consistent flat surface.  It was interesting because I didn't realize that the pavers where I had started were on higher ground than the ones at the end of the bed, and the difference was about the height of one paver.  So not only did I have to level, but I had to add dirt as I moved down the line to keep everything nice and flat.

In the end, even though it looked okay and I knew it was level, I used a larger level and measured on different locations.  It made the happy that the result was almost identical in all 3 locations.

Below are pictures of the end result.  I added one 32 qt bag of Nature's Care potting soil.  I figure I will need about 6 more bags, maybe more, to get the depth that I want.  I'm very happy with the result, and most importantly, so is my fiancé, who is doing this with me all the way from London.  :-)

That's it!  This took me about 3 hours in total.  What's next?  I will be going out of town for a week in 3 weeks time, so I'm hoping that by then I can have the seedlings planted into the ground and will only need very minimal supervision.  Either way, I have an AWESOME friend house and dogsitting, who I'm sure won't mind giving the plants all the attention they'll need, even if that means reading them bedtime stories and whispering sweet things into their leaves.  :-)