Preparation

This year, I am putting a garden in my Dad's backyard (he lives on Highbury Ave, London) and am growing some plants on the balcony.  I had a lot of problems with spidermites on the balcony last year (I guess the wind blows them onto the balcony), so I am going to try to mesh off areas to try to minimize the mites.

 this is where the potatoes will go

the backyard before - turns out there was a bunch of metal buried here

The garden at Dad's is a pretty decent size.  He fixed a rototiller for a friend of his and used it to till the backyard up...

You know what's fun?  When someone decides that burying a bunch of scrap metal in the backyard where you want your garden to be is a good idea ... and then you have to dig it all up.  Ugh!
It took Colin and I about an hour to free all the metal.  Dad thought it was just a little bit of metal... how wrong he was.

Not only was there a bunch of metal buried, but also some cinder blocks, bricks, glass bottles and 2 toys.  Thanks previous homeowner!  That was such a nice thing for you to leave behind!

I'm a little nervous to plant any vegetables in the spot where all the metal was.  I have no idea what kind of metal it is or if it was coated with anything, and I don't want to eat contaminated veg.  I have a planter that I might stick in that corner for now... or I might just plant marigolds there...

The soil is very sandy.  May 5 is Compost Day in London, so I am going to get a truckload of compost and add that to the soil.  Dad will then till it all in and hopefully that should bulk up the soil.  I'm also starting a compost at Dad's.  I also got a box of bloodmeal that I scattered all over the soil... to try to prevent squirrels.  I may have to get more.