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Home > I Think I'm Going To Take On A Garden

I Think I'm Going To Take On A Garden

June 13th, 2008 at 09:15 pm

Let me start by saying I have absolutely no clue about gardening. I thought when I bought my house I'd automatically grow a green thumb. No, actually it's dead along with several other things in my yard. It doesn't help that we're enduring a horrible drought here that's been goin' on a couple of years now.

My neighbor on the other hand, is a goddess of gardening. She works 2 jobs and is hardly ever home yet her yard looks soooo green and wonderful. Her plants are always so pretty. I was finally able to corner her the other day when I was pulling up from work. She had the day off from her 2nd job and was cutting the grass. I asked her how she kept her yard so pretty being in a drought. Her reply "Oh I really don't know how they're surviving. I don't water them...heck I really don't do anything but cut the grass." Yeah that was a big eye roller. Me over here struggling to keep something alive and she's over here just throwing her hair back thinking "Yeah I'm just that good". She continued to tell me she pays someone to come fert. her lawn and that she had prepped her flower beds with peat moss. Now as lame as I'm about to sound here, I'd never heard of peat moss.....I made a mental note to google that later. I had her come over to my yard to tell me what I had growing in my flower bed. I thought it was something I'd planted long ago trying to come up.....no just rag weed. Yeah, see...I told you.

So upon my googling of peat moss, I discovered this bad boy holds on to 20 times it's weight in water and that it releases the water as the soil needs it. BINGO. This is how her flowers look so good. Soooo....I'm figuring I need to go buy this and put it in my flower beds and give it a good watering.

Anyways, I came across some real cheap veggy seeds (corn, spinich, lettuce, rasberry, green beans, tomatos, green peppers), blueberry plants, and strawberry plants. I'm thinking I want to see if I can grow some food. I know I'm getting a late start but here in my area of GA we really don't start cooling down until about the begining of Nov. and even then it's not really frost worthy. I've been reading up on it all today and apparently this goes beyond digging a hole in the ground and putting something in it. Here in GA we had a lot of red clay but my yard seems to be more sandy. From what I read this may be a good thing. For those gardeners, I know I would till up an area, but would you suggest just keeping it sand and use fertilizer or adding some black soil into it? I was thinking with the peat moss, since we're in the drought, to put that on top. What do you think? Also, any other tips would be greatly appreciated as well.

6 Responses to “I Think I'm Going To Take On A Garden”

  1. PauletteGoddard Says:
    1213388219

    I'm reading _You Grow, Girl_ (online presence: yougrowgirl.com). You might check that out if you're so inclined.

  2. koppur Says:
    1213388518

    I know for my Urban Garden (stuff on my back deck in pots) I used chicken poop as a fertilizer. Mums got a huge bag from the gardening store and gave me some. Just mix it into the top layer of soil and it helps stuff grow really fast. In about 2 weeks, my tomato plant went from closed flower buds to green tomatoes!

    Also, make sure you check the instruction on the back of the seeds or on the plastic thing in the pot to see what the sun requirements are (full sun, partial sun, no sun-shade). Good luck!

  3. debtfreeme Says:
    1213389350

    does your county have an ag office? Sometimes they will come and visit you yard and tell you what will and won't grow. Ours even has free day long classes to learn how to make things grow. well worth checking out.

  4. JanH Says:
    1213391313

    I hear ya, sigh....I had a second cousin that had a rose bush growing out of her "brush pile." Things that she'd cut down and tossed aside to take care of later. At that time, I had trouble growing anything hardy in a pot. And, she just had things growing out of her trash. I knew then that I didn't have the green thumb gene in the family. But, it's gotten better. Keep us posted on your garden because I've toyed with the idea myself!

  5. baselle Says:
    1213418717

    Good gardens are made from the ground up. If your soil is sandy, it means that water goes right through it. Terrible if you're in a drought, great if you are in a flood because it would dry out. You definitely need the peat moss, the topsoil, and compost (appropriately rotted plant material), all mixed together and dug in. Definitely want to check out your county extension, and see if you can get advice from a master gardener (they are with county extension.)

    Concentrate your efforts on improving the soil in a small plot, or even start growing things in a couple of pots. You want to learn, and not dilute your energies on getting everything right on a large scale.

  6. scfr Says:
    1213452696

    It's great that you are going to give gardening a try. I made my first stab at gardening last year (it was my $20 challenge in fact). Like you, I'm a brown thumb. My suggestion would be to pick just a few items (2-4) to try the first year so that you don't get overwhelmed.

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