Late to this thread, but our garden was a massive chore to get going. Last year, I knew I wanted a garden, problem was we're on a HEAVILY wooded lot, with mostly clay and VERY rocky soil. So first my son and I had to fell about 20 trees and clear some land. We started last July and, because he was only 9, and I'm getting a little creaky at 44, it took us most of the summer to clear out all the wood (I don't own a tractor so all the wood needs to be cut up and ax split and hauled in a wheelbarrow to the woodpile). In early fall, I had a buddy come over with a backhoe and I borrowed another backhoe and we pulled up the stumps and tore into the ground to pull out the largest of the rocks (many about the size of a large watermelon, a few the size of a full grown pig)as well as the larger roots. Into that space I pushed a bunch of topsoil that had rotted down from woodchips over the course of 5 years as well as a lot of composted henhouse wood shavings. The PH was all wrong, so all winter I'd put some wood ash in there and mix in whatever compost I could. On warmer days, we let the chickens free-range in the garden area. By spring I had a fair bed of soil to start, still too rocky, so I raked and raked and finally got a few rows of workable soil. Then I built a nice deer fence to keep those annoying critters out.

Now we've got peppers, tomatoes, peas, lettuce, kale and greenbeans in, as well as a lot of herbs and spices. At 60x100, the garden is way too small, so after this season, I'm going to do it the easy way - I'm going to burn off some more of the yard where I want the garden, drop another 10 trees, build a nice surround of stone walls and order two dump trucks of ready-to-go soil. I want to garden next year, not excavate.

We also participate in Community Supported Agriculture - and hopefully next year, we can order our grain locally.