What did I get myself into?

I have always wanted a garden.  I moved to a condo complex a couple of years ago that has a community garden for the residents here.   When I put in for a plot last year, I was happy when I got the call telling me I had plot  #7!  My first question: so... how big is my plot?

The response: was a vague sort of same as everyone else's.

I went down to scope it out and saw two fenced-in areas and figured the  5' x19' space was mine. 

Cool, cool.   I was a new kid on the block.  I'd make it work.  Some tomatoes and stuff... I could do this. I drew up some rough plans and went down to start cleaning the space out after some years of neglect.   It wasn't long before I realized,  that the two fenced in areas belonged to me too!  The whole space that was mine was 16' x 19' and I had no idea what to do.


I bought a raised bed kit, gave it a try and it all went to pot when I went on vacation for 3 weeks and the person who said they'd water did that, but between the local fauna and such, I came back to wilted plants, fruit and such on the ground, half eaten by chipmunks, and a general mess.

Part of the problem had to do with the ghost of gardeners past who had planted mint and raspberries that spread through the garden faster than water rolling downhill in flood.

So  I  thought through the plan for this year.  I reread "The New Square Foot Garden" by Mel Bartholomew, remeasured and replanned. 

This is what I started with on March 29th of this year.  I cleaned out the 8'x8' fenced in area and built some raised garden beds to created 40 square feet of gardening space in that section alone.

So... here we go again.

Fighting back the ghosts of gardens past - all the failures, all the things that invade in community gardens, all the critters.

Wish me good luck... I'm gonna need it!