A new garden

This past week I managed to build a nice raised bed in the front planting strip. It's 20 inches high, 12 feet long, and 4 feet wide, with a one-foot wide flower bed on the sidewalk side. I stained it with some eco-friendly stain and filled it halfway up with fill from Jeff's garage project (topsoil and compost to come later). It kind of looks like a sore thumb at the moment, but only one neighbor has expressed skepticism about it (the one who also expressed skepticism about the chickens); everyone else has been curious and encouraging. I did spend one partially sleepless night worrying that I had gotten in over my head by putting such a huge and prominent raised bed in the front yard, where everyone can see it, judge it, steal from it, let their dogs pee on it, and judge my gardening abilities. I think the public exposure will encourage me to be a better gardener - even going so far as to water it regularly and do successive plantings of lettuce. Usually, I plant everything in one burst of early spring enthusiasm, water it occasionally, and then forget about it. This year I even plan to test the soil and use some of the compost I've been saving up. I'll post pictures soon.