I'm not really sure why we made the 40 minute drive out to the new house just to open presents and then drive 40 minutes back again. I think we just like being out there. I dropped off the plants, a couple boxes, put the slinky on one of the shepherd hooks, and checked out the border gardens a little closer.
The border gardens appear sparse for the most part because they're pretty much all gravel underneath a few years of composted leaves. I'm not sure if we will dig out the gravel and add soil, or if we will put down cardboard and add soil and manure on top of it. If we do the latter, we may need to invest in bricks to be a border for the now deeper/raised beds. Tony wants to look at them before deciding. Sure wish he'd have taken a look at them today so I don't have to wait to make plans until next time we go out and then wait again to bring any supplies I might need.
For now I'm going to assume it will be best to just build new soil with the cardboard and soil method. This was the plan to build the gardens on the rest of the property as well (with mulch on top to keep weeds out). It shouldn't be too hard to get this set up. It's just time and labor intensive. I can have Tony pick up some soil and mulch before our next trip out, and we can use the moving boxes for the cardboard, since we won't be needing them once we unpack.
Now I'm dreaming of gardens full of peppers, tomatoes, asparagus, peas, beans, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, potatoes, rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apples, grapes, corn, and on and on... All the home-grown yummy goodies that we can eat fresh from the garden or preserve for later!