Recipe for great dirt

Where I live the soil is pretty good i guess. There is alot of clay in it, and it has a good layer of black top soil. The only problem is, the weeds and grasses around here love it too, which makes gardening in the ground more trouble than it worth. I don't know about you but I'd rather spend my summer afternoons sipping lemonade in the hammock over chopping endlessly at rouge weeds. The abundance of weeds also tends to deplete the soil of some of the nutrients. My solution? I have gone to raised bed gardening which works great in just about any situation. I dont use alot of the local soil for the beds though, as it is usually full of grass and weed roots and seeds. My favorite mix for growing just about anything is peat moss and Miracle Gro potting mix. I usually stick to a ratio of 2:1, 2parts peat moss to 1 part soil. If I'm doing a huge bed, I might go ahead and use a little of the soil from the ground if I have to. The peat moss really helps hold moisture and it adds organic nutrients. One other little trick I have to growing the big baddest veggies i can... horse um .. manure. For a couple of years we had two horses as pets, and we ended up with an endless supply of manure. It's not a "hot" fertilizer like chicken manure is, which means you dont have to wait for it to dry out as long or worry about it burning your plants. If you are interested in trying the manure method, but you dont have a horse or other farm animals, check with your local stables, many of them shovel away truck loads a day. You can also buy the stuff, but it's alot more expensive.

Let's get dirty!

Spring is here! Not that winter was much to talk about, but finally I think we're past the big bad frost around here. I got most of my newest editions in the ground, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and too many more to list. The wild flowers in texas have gone absolutly nuts this year, which had made for some really nice pics. Everywhere you look there are fields of yellow and purple. Unfortunatly, the thistles have done just as well, but I am declaring war on them later this week ;)

Catching up...

I know... Ive been aweful! I havent written anything in weeks! I promise i do have a fairly good excuse I guess. In a previous post I had explained that we had moved from our tiny house in the country to a house in the city. Well.. we decided to move back to our old house in the country. Just too much craziness in the city neighborhood we were in and we missed having all the room to run around in the sunshine. So for the past few weeks we have been packing and hauling, and now i have the tedious task of unpacking, ugh... O well, it's all worth it in the end and the kiddos are super excited to be back. This is also good news for all my wonderful supportive readers, now that i'm back here I will have tons of new garden tips and tricks! I have a whole new garden planned for this year and will be sure to share it with you shorty. Meanwhile here are some awesome inspirational garden ideas i came across this week. Hope you enjoy!

this last one is inspiration for my newest project, Ive been collecting tons of pallets, and i'm going to put them to use on a new deck beside the house. i'll be sure to post a how to and pics when I'm done :)

best wishes~ Ann♥