Welcome to our forum, Victoria. Go ahead and post your question in the discussions forums. You'll be sure to get some answers there. If I were you I'd simply plant some beans from seed and some tomatoes and cucumbers from plants this year and just get a handle on how those basic plants grow. Then next year you can expand what you grow. Add another new thing or two. I am doing that and last year the new thing was rhubarb and blueberries; this year it is raspberries. Next year will be apple and peach trees and lowbush blueberries. Hoe out a big square and then make raised rows inside that with the soil that you have. I'd go and also get a bag or two of well composted manure and how that into the soil rows, not the aisles. Keep your aisles clean by hoeing over covering them with mulch of some sort. Do a search for that on here and you'll get plenty of ideas. Water it deeply every week if you don't get at least an inch of rain. Make that a science project with your son :) As you get more into gardening, you can devise new ways to make the garden look prettier. For now, I'd stick with getting some produce out of the whole deal. Beans, cucs and tomatoes are pretty easy. Again, do a search on this forum for those plants and you'll get thousands of ideas of how to plant them. Good luck! Alicate

I'm glad that you're planning to add the lime, as in my experience, New England gardens usually need it. I support you in your "winging it" approach, though I advise caution as you proceed. Pay careful attention to your soil and your plants. A home test kit may or may not do anything useful for you (I've really heard horrible reviews of them). I'd suggest that you seriously consider putting in some sort of mild terracing along your slope, rather than just one wall at the end (unless you believe that one wall would allow you to level the whole thing...but then you're back to adding loads of material to fill it, so I'm guessing not?). I gardened on a slight slope last year, and had to go to some effort to create little berms at various points, so that the water would stay where I put it rather than running downhill all the time. I might suggest some of those "Windsor blocks" that they sell at Home Depot -- I've used them before with great success. They have other sorts of options, too. I garden organically, too. It can take a while to get your soil to where you want it to be, but I think it's well worth it. I like the amendments that you list, and think they'll serve you well. I also managed to find myself a great source of rabbit manure, which I think will prove to be a huge boon. For fertilizers, I've been using a combination of the Gardens Alive! dry fertilizers (available from their web site or catalog), and Neptune's Harvest fish and/or seaweed fertilizer. Since my garden is small (so far!), the last me a while. However, I'm hoping to build up my soil sufficiently with manure and compost and hay mulch that I won't need to buy any more of these after my current supplies are depleted. Only time will tell if this is realistic, but there are plenty of people on the Soil forum reporting that if you do what's needed for the soil, you eventually won't need fertilizers. I see you're in MA and in the city. Are you in the Boston area? If so, send me a private message if you'd like to chat about local stuff like manure sources, or anything else.

Sue, thanks for the tip on Heritage Roses NW. I will check into that. Here is my list. I didn't include the climbers because I think I know how to place them. And this list doesn't include all the Austins I want to get and all the OGRs I want to get now that I have found this forum! LOL All of these roses are mostly from Heirloom which is local for me and RU (from Pat's suggestions). Amazing Grace Abraham Darby Ambridge Rose Bonica Bolero Brigadoon Cassie Cecile Brunner Courageous Desiree Elle Flutterbye Frederic Mistral Graham Thomas Hot Cocoa Jacqueline Du Pre Jude The Obscure Lady Mitchell Lavaglut Lavender Dream Lemon Spice Louise Clements Miss Dior Molineux Mystic Beauty Outta The Blue Pat Austin Peach Blossom Pegasus Pillow Fight Pink Knock Out Pretty Jessica QueenÂs London Child Reconciliation Roberto Capucci Sans Soucci Sharifa Asma St. Swithun Sunsprite Tamora Tess Of The DÂurbervilles Thornbury Castle Tournament Of Roses Well-Being I am putting together a list of roses I want to get for the future and will have to plan for those roses too. Wow, this is a big job! So I will have, like I said, a bunch of OGRs and some more Austins to add to my plan but I don't have that list finalized yet. I wanted to see how much space I have left before I order more. Oh, and all the roses from Heirlooms are band size. And the ones from RU are gallons. I am having a hard time making sure all these bands stay watered. I have planted some roses from Heirloom before and they did fine without potting them into gallons first before putting them in the garden. So I would like to plant these bands as soon as possible. Thanks for your help! Karen

when you plant them outside put them in some good organic fish compost - keep them out of the *****wind***** in a micro climate - plant them even with the ground don't mound them.You cannot kill these plants with fert - I was giving mine 20-20-20 every other watering - water when soil gets near dry especially when establishing June, July) mid July you can water more.Stop Fert in late August to harden off. After first hard frost cage them and fill the cage with leaves,pine needles or straw apply a good fungal spray first to the stem - your in zone 5b so cage should be at least a foot out from stem then cover with a tarp - also mulch the ground an extra 2 feet from stem.. Jeff