Before the start

     Here is our property in August 1969, just after we bought it for $4000 (the equivalent of $25,800 in 2015 dollars).  It is a one-acre lot, 150 feet wide by 300 feet deep (with the back left corner cut off a bit).  In addition, from the edge of the road to where our property actually begins is about 20 feet of road ditch.  The photo was taken facing the west.
     The property rises about 25 feet from the front to the back right.  The hill in the back angles to the southwest.  It is a glacial drumlin, an elongated deposit formed under a continental glacier parallel to the flow of ice.  Thus, the last glacier that covered this area, the Lake Michigan Lobe of The Wisconsin Glacier, traveled in a southwest direction.  The last ice melted here about 9000 years ago.
     The lot was selected among several in the subdivision because of this hill.  I knew I could do a lot more interesting things in the gardens with elevation changes.  I didn't have any plans for the gardens when I began them in the next year, 1970.  Something would just have to come to mind.  It did.
     This was a farm field until 1966, and the hedgerow on the left was the southern

boundary of the field.  Behind the lot was a 20-acre woods, which is still there, but now filled with 11 houses.  The soil is Hocheim silt loam, formed over bedrock dolomite limestone.  Thus, the soil is mildly alkaline, ranging from pH 7.1 to 7.3.
     The photo includes Peter Lappen, my wife's father, my wife, Dorothy, and me.  Sadly, this was the last photo taken of him, as he died three months later.