Dirty thoughts

I got my hands dirty today.  I guess I need to find my old garden gloves.  The dirt in the planters around the patio is now loose and on it's way to being planted with all sorts of greenery.  In my wild hacking with the trowel, I discovered a few living somethings that apparently survived the winter.  Hopefully they'll survive me too.  I'm trying to remember what was there last fall, but I don't really have a clue.

Horrible picture, but there are definitely some shoots coming up

The square foot garden is not yet put together and my husband now plans to make me another one.  Oh, joy!  I think he secretly likes gardening as much as I do.  Too bad he doesn't like tomatoes, because that's basically what he'll be getting.  I've always had to work my tail off just to get a few red tomatoes, but now I'm in a much warmer climate, so I'm going to go crazy.  As crazy as you can get in a 4 foot by 4 foot space anyway.

In my planning and musing, I overlooked one major thing.  Dirt.  I'm going to need dirt.  The square foot gardening guru claims that you must make a mix of compost, peat moss and vermiculite.  I looked up some prices and laughed myself silly.  I can't afford all of that.  Not enough to fill two 4x4x1 foot boxes.  I'm trying to come to grips with buying even the cheapest of compost.  Paying for dirt just feels so wrong to me.  All my life, I've lived within easy distance of all the compost I could want.  We keep young colts and calves in the corral during the winter in order to keep an eye on them and feed them the better stuff.  In return, they create a lovely compost.  I've never had to think too hard about dirt.  I'm really struggling with this -pay for dirt- concept.  My sister has sort of offered to load up some barnyard stuff in her little truck and bring it to me, which I wasn't about to accept.  That's too much work and too far a distance for anyone to come just for dirt.  But now... I think I'll give her a call.  What could she have to do that is better than hauling compost around? 

Well, off to think some more dirty thoughts