opening day

i got to the garden at 6:50 this morning and two-and-a-half hours and 280 pounds of compost and composted cow manure i had beds prepared for the jerusalem artichokes, chinese yams, welsh onions, and elephant garlic, and the garlic and onions in the ground. the university maintainence staff skimmed the sod off the plot with a bobcat (thanks! you don't know how much my back appreciates that!) and it's a 7.5 mile one-way trip from my house to the campus...other than that i intend to invest as few petrochemicals in this as possible. there's still the fuel burned in shipping in the plants, seeds, and manure, but it's a garden of perennials so hopefully ( if i do this correctly) those will mostly be one-time expenditures. i have found some good, patient suppliers around the country whose committment to organic plants and non-transgentic, heirloom seeds have gotten me off to a good start. joe hollis at http://www.mountaingardensherbs.com/ is sending us the chinese yams from north carolina. the jerusalem artichokes and the winter savroy are coming from johnny's selected seeds in winslow, maine. the arugula nd tomatoes are from heirloom seeds in west finley, pennsylvania. the spinach is from baker creek seeds in mansfeild, missouri, and the welsh onions came from j.l. hudson seeds in la haonda, california. inputs from all over, and i am sure there are many more i will come across as i shop for organic seed potatoes in the spring. i am new at prennial gardening...all my previous experience was with annuals, so this will be a learning experience on a multitude of levels...hopefully the curve will not be too long. perennials have been around a long time...longer than humans...i will trust in the plants' evolutionary history to supply the deficiencies in my knowledge and abillities...they are much better at growing than i am. i am pretty much a technological illiterate ( it is a testament to the idiot-proof nature of modern computers that i am able to post blogs...this may or may not be a good thing ) so as soon as i can figure out how to upload the pictures i am taking from the digital camera i bought ( time to dip into the instruction manual ) i will add some illustrations...until then...peace