Mezo....lol, it's my buddy's house or I would have! He says that the garden is huge....I think it's small.....but since I've started working on it, it is seemingly getting BIGGER in my mind...hahaha.
Bee- East and west is front to back, long ways. I am standing taking the pictures facing the east, looking at the trees. (There are some big trees and getting enough sun might be an issue. But this is the only spot we can do it and if it wasn't here, it wouldn't be anywhere, so it will have to do and the plants better love it or else!)
Gnslgr-Hell yea, these bad boys have biceps...they will be entering this years pepper strong plant competitions.
Sawdust-Thanks man! I am very appreciative that you follow and take anything away from this glog. (Don't worry, I got an Ex too, and she left behind some debt for me....but it's a damn good trade off if you ask me. You can always change your future, you can't beat getting rid of dead weight!)
Pulpiteer-.......Don't dis my Bears man.....lol. DITKA! Thanks for the comps dude. Your plot is looking great as well. I did end up going with another load of compost. We tilled in the first load and needed another...we ended up putting 8+ yards of it in our plot. It will be a whole nother story next year. We will have to work with what we got for now.
UPDATE TIME!:
OK, things are going as smoothly as they can at this point. Breaking up with my GF has given me some much needed time to tend to the garden.......lmao. The plants we put outside in our first greenhouse have been a little stunted by the 32-45 degree nights and cold gloomy days. They are still growing, just very slowly now. The annuums seem to be handling it better than the Chinenses. The plants that we put out in the second greenhouse just a week ago, are thriving and loving it. (now that the nights have been warmer, around 48-50+) Can't wait to see what all these babies do once it gets really warm and sunny out!
We stopped giving the plants nutes, they are so root bound, I need to slow the growth down a little, since we are not potting up and just waiting for plant out. Should be fun trying to untangle the jungle of roots once we put them in the ground...ugh. But hey, the rewards will be worth the effort.
We are allowing one of the Long Choco Habs to flower as well as the three White Habs we have going. There are a bunch of buds on the LCH's and a few should open up to flowers in a day or two I think. (I will get pictures soon) The WH's are exploding with buds. I'd say they have about 50-75 buds on each plant and they are only a foot tall, if that. I'm not pinching that many.....lol. They can have their way and do what they want. I'll overwinter them and get a bigger plant next year if the flowering stunts their vegetative growth.
Now on to the garden. We dumped about 4 yards of compost onto the plot and tilled it in. Once we got done with that, the clay...*clears throat* I mean soil, still clumped into playdough balls. So...we went and picked up another truck load (4 yards) of compost and tilled that in as well. It helped out extensively. The plot is still far from any consistency I would consider great but it is a million times better than what we started with. We tilled around 12-14 inches deep.
The compost came from a local horse farm. We know the owner and he has a ridiculous pile...the EPA is actually coming down on him to get rid of it because it's so huge. He loved us for taking it off his hands..lol. We got the good stuff from the middle of the pile, that has been there for around 3 years. It doesn't look like earth but it smells just like it...so good. Anyone in the area that wants some of this stuff, it's free and he will load it with a bobcat. If you want it delivered (to the lake and mchenry counties) we can do it for a delivery fee.
We had my buddies little helper too. I love him, he's a cool little dude.
I'm still a little lost on what I want to do with the garden, as in how I want to plant and if I want to try and do raised rows or just rake it all even and plant them as is. The garden is roughly 6inches higher than the ground around it already. Plant out is maybe next weekend! Hell yeah. You guys will get to see three grows now. My home grow, our pepper grow and our vegetable grow (I only get half the garden for the peps.....lol) We are going to grow Watermelon, Pumpkins, Green Beans, Peas, Lettuce, Tomatoes, Broccoli and Onions. I'm also going to start a herb garden in my grow box now that I put my peppers outside. (Cilantro, Sweet Basil, Chives,Garlic, Oregano and Chamomile)
Here's some pics, I might have to wait until someone posts to fit all of them. I know I'm probably leaving something out too lol. Oh, I have some pics of the second green house we built and we will be building a fence around the garden soon too.
lol. It is awesome. I'm going to make one, when I get some time and money. 
Yes, I know your budget, It really comes down to having a ride to go get the stuff. I'll be on it soon enough. Even if I had money for a badass dehydrator, I would still want to build one of these. It's just too cool and anything I can make with my hands is time well spent. 
city living... What is east west in the pics you posted? looks like that spot should get a ton of sun! Congrats man wont be long bill they are all in the dirt!
It only speaks to your growing prowess that you can raise plants in the shadow of something like that.
