The Garden Takes Shape

I've been turning my garden area by hand, one shovelful at a time. I've learned a lot! Gardening MIGHT be a great anger management, as it gives you purposful destruction. Gardening can be good for an exercize routine- you're doing repetitive muscle movements for long periods of time (Heart rate up? Sure! Work faster!). Clay is not soil. Clay with BIG WORMS is good, but still not soil. Grass and sod turned under with out newspaper shavings smell like funky swamp rot when turning the soil the second time. I'll have to try the newspaper shreds trick next year and debate which plan was better.

Since the last post, I have finished turning the soil and clay for the second time. I've remeasured the perimeter and I have 220 sqft gardne area. My path has been stamped, kicked, and shoveled about and is rather clear in the dirt. Yesterday and today, I've been stabbing the clods of dried dirt and clay with my shovel, breaking them up smaller and smaller and shifting the resulting mounds into position.

Today, DH gave me a $40 dollar budget and took me to the Nursery. :-D

I got 11 packets and 1 meshed bag of seeds and things to plant, 4 cu ft of (some kind of "super soil fixer") ______________________ and 1 cu ft of chicken poo :-D DH found the 2nd Farmer's Almanac for Kids and picked that up for some lesson material for school.

He didn't he me trying to tell him how I was trying to bring down my total. The book was 10. I figured the seeds out at 2 dollars a packet ($22 -25) the soil was 16 and the poo was 6. I asked him if the book was seperate from the garden budget ("Huh? Yea" as we are walking to the really long line) Ok... I'm still about 5 dollars over.. "Ok, I'll go thru and put a few of these back for now" I chirp as I start sorting thru the little colorful packets in my hand. "No. Don't put anything back." He says to me :) I love this man!! "Ok Honey, Thank you!!"

$57 dollars later (Hey, I was REALLY close in my estimate) He had to think thru the sequence of events, closely to see how he agreed to almost 60.... hehehe

OH! :( The (really cool) watering can I had found! Ugh!!! I was horrified to discover it was TWENTY-five ninety-nine, not the mere 6 dollars I had thought I read. I must learn to wear my glasses all. the. time. *sigh* I quickly took that back inside! My thumb over the hose end or milk jug with sprinkle holes will work just fine!! LOL

I would LOVE to take a pic of the back yard right now, but the webcam on the computer likes the sun to be a bit lower first. I will snap pics before and after I spread the soil booster. I'll even take a picture of the bag, incase you want to use it to break up your clay and supplement the soil. They have another one for raised bed gardens too. :-)

Seeds that we have now include: Garlic, Onion, White Lisbon Onion, Rainbow Carrot, Rainbow Tomato, Cucumber, Lemon Cucumber, White Corn, Golden Corn, Radishes, Strawberry, Cantalope, Red Grape Tomato, Slicer Tomato, Spear mint, Basil, Carrots, Shrot carrots, Green Bean and Sweet Pea.