DIY Soil Testing

This past weekend I was ready to amend and till the soil in my new beds in front.  I read about a DIY soil test to determine if my soil is alkaline or acidic.  (I'll give credit where credit is due:  http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf85637370.tip.html ) 

You can follow the link and read for yourself, but roughly the technique is this:

Scoop up some soil and put it in 2 cups.  (If you want to you can scoop from topsoil and from a few inches below the surface and mix them together.)

To the first cup add 1/2 cup vinegar.  To the second cup add 1/2 cup baking soda, and then a 1/2 cup water.

If the vinegar one fizzes, your soil is alkaline.  If the baking soda one fizzes, your soil is acidic.

I did the vinegar one first, and went to my pantry to get the baking soda.  Before I got back, the glass with vinegar had fizzed over the top like a souffle, and all over my counter!   (Note:  conduct this test outdoors... lol)   I guess I got my answer...

Nothing at all happened with the baking soda glass.

More Flower Bed Progress

I had an amazing day in the yard yesterday!  The weather was so comfortable for mid-May that I had to pinch myself and wonder if I was really in Dallas...

I finished digging up the sod on the left half of the front yard, and gave a sidewalk full of tidy squares of beautiful sod to a neighbor in need.  I had no expectations of finishing the left side, but I surprised myself.  I think it was due to easier digging because of our recent rains, and the moderate temperatures.  I even got my tiller out and tilled the bed when I was done!  I was pleased to realize that with some redistribution of the soils in the bed, that I really am not short that much volume.  I think I can just amend the soil a bit and have plenty of depth for planting.  I will need quite a bit of mulch, though.

Ta-da!  (Look, my little pecan tree is still alive under it's wire protection!)

I still need to give the existing shrubs some love - thin out the trunks down below the canopy (can shrubs have a canopy, or is that just trees?  Anyway, I need to prune them to show their legs.  Call that what you want....)

I'm starting the fun part now - thinking about what plants I can relocate to this bed!  This side of the front yard is the sunny side.  The right hand side is mostly shade.  I know I have a couple of things in the backyard that are not getting enough sun, and I'll move those.  And I have marigold seeds remaining from the marigold seed trials I am participating in - those will be planted.  I also have some onion sets from a neighbor that I may try - although it might be too late for those... I also have seeds that I've harvested from my cosmos and my calendula - certainly I will have room for more of those. 

I volunteered at The Butterfly Plant Sale at Texas Discovery Gardens this past weekend.  I forced myself to leave my debit card in my car to reduce temptation, and I managed to not buy a single thing - astonishing.  My beds weren't ready, so I used that to rationalize my good behavior.  However.... all of the inventory didn't sell, and we are having a follow up sale this Saturday!  And gee... now my front bed IS ready...  tee hee ha ha.  So I'll likely pick up a few things there.  I mean, prices will be reduced, and, well... look at that beautiful bed!  It will be good to let the soil rest for a week before planting, too...

I also plan to flip through some of my garden books and figure out some plants that will bloom or have pretty foliage throughout the year - not just in the summer - so that my entire bed doesn't die back in the Winter.  I've never made those considerations before, so that will be new territory (pun intended) for me.  I'd love any suggestions you may have.  I'm in Zone 8.  And I have pretty decent soil...

I will start digging up the right hand side this week.  It will be easier than the left side was for a variety of reasons:  (a)  It's a smaller area.  (b) I don't have to get on my hands and knees under existing shrubs to be able to reach all of the grass.  (c)  Boy, do I have the technique down to a science!

Mother's Day Garden Bouquet

I hope everyone had a relaxing Mother's Day yesterday - even if you aren't a mother!  My mother lives across the country, so I wasn't able to see her.  I did pick some flowers from my garden for a special person in my life, though, and put them into an arrangement:

It includes Blue Spires Sage (a salvia), Bachelor Buttons, Black Eyed Susans, Lavender, Bog Sage, and Brazilian Verbena.  I'm not sure which was more fun - choosing and harvesting the flowers, or delivering the finished bouquet! 

2012 Manifesto statement #21:  Grow flowers and give them away.

Flower Bed Expansion Project Progress

After having a posting on Craig's List for nearly 2 weeks offering "free St. Augustine sod - you dig it up, it's yours" without good results* I set out with my shovel on Sunday to tackle it myself.

Saturday I had a brain spark that I should make a sign reading, "FREE SOD" to put in my parkway as I dug it up, but frankly I was too lazy to actually do it.  I got up Sunday, had my coffee talk on the porch with friends, and started digging.  I lined up the squares of the (beautiful, healthy) sod on the sidewalk, with really no plan of what I would do with it but somehow assured that it would all work out.

When I had dug up two squares and laid them out on the sidewalk, the voice in my head became too loud to ignore. With a heavy sigh I put down the shovel, peeled off my gloves, took off my hat, shucked off my work boots and padded into my house in stocking feet to make a sign.

Came back out, reassembled my work attire and unceremoniously stuck the sign into the ground in my parkeway. Picked up the shovel and resumed the fun.

Literally less than 15 minutes later my neighbor from up on the corner was strolling my way, asking what in the heck I was doing.  I explained that I am steadily chipping away at my front lawn, abolishing it bit by bit.  She looked at the yard, looked at the sign, and said, "I want it."  Sweet!  I offered my wheelbarrow for transport and kept digging.  She stopped me, and pointed.  "Pull up that sign.  I want ALL of it."  Seriously?  It turns out between our rain, her many dogs, and hosting a neighborhood Easter event, her sod was shot, and she didn't have the cash to replace it.  I'm so glad I made the sign!  Win/win, I say.

Also, I will cite my 2012 Manifesto, statement #6:  Listen to the voice in your head; it may not be your own.

Digging up sod in tidy squares is not necessarily difficult, or hard work, but it is sort of slow.  I worked for a couple of hours - not exactly sure how long - and got enough squares cut out to fill two wheelbarrows heaping full.   But really, it wasn't as much coverage (uncoverage?) as I would have anticipated.  Behold, the new corner, with the new placement of border stones:

And I also dug up along the inside of the "squiggle" portion:

I knew pulling the grass out from the behind the border, allowing the contrast of the soil vs grass would give a big change visually, and I was looking forward to seeing it - i.e. validating all the hard work of rearranging the border stones 2 weeks ago! 

For this left side of the yard, here is the portion that remains to be dug up:

I MIGHT be a third of the way done with just the left side.  What you can't see in the photo is that the grass extends a few feet to the left, underneath the shrubbery...  Who needs a gym membership? 

The good news is, (or is it good news?  Perhaps not...) I am not under any deadline to finish it, other than the peer pressure of an unfinished project in my front yard.  Oh, and this Saturday is the Butterfly House semi-annual butterfly plant sale... hmmmmm.   : )

* Five different individuals wanted it, asked for and received photos.  Some even got as far as asking for my address.  One actually showed up, but didn't bring a shovel, promised to come back with help... None of them ever followed through...

You'll Never Finish if You Never Start...

I took the plunge on Saturday and started re-working the configuration of the beds in the front of my house.  It was a daunting project for me to begin, and I stood in the front yard with the shovel for quite a long time, consulting my neighbor (okay, procrastinating) before I mustered enough courage to pull out the first border stone.  I knew that once I started I was in for a major project.

Most of my yard work up until this Spring has been concentrated in the backyard.  Last year in the front I had removed some over-crowded shrubs, and in their place started a butterfly garden.  But the butterfly garden is only the peninsula portion of one bed - a small piece.  And I'd tucked a few herbs in along the front of my porch, where they are sheltered -- but you really can't see them.  I'm the only one who even knows they are there.  So, the front yard is due for some attention.

I've been wanting to take on this project for a couple of reasons.  First, the beds were just chock full of 90 degree angles.  To my eye that isn't pleasing; the edges are sharp.  And hard angles are not good Feng Shui...how can the good chi flow smoothly with all those sharp edges?  :::grin:::  Logistically, too, the hard corners presented challenges for mowing, and coupled with that is my intense dislike for the weed eater.  And lastly, I harbor a dislike for turf.  For needless grass.  And so I'm hatching plans to abolish my lawn, little by little.

Here are two shots of the right hand side of my front yard.  The first one, I have the stones laid in the new border, but you can see where the old border was.  That misshapen "T" area of grass is the area newly included in the bed.

Here's a view from the front, with the mulch circle around the tree that I added a few weeks ago. I wrote about that project just a few posts back...  I was afraid I wouldn't have enough stones to enclose  the circle, but I did - with more to spare.  (Can you tell that I did not excel in Geometry class?  It's too close to math.  Again, put me in your spelling bee...)

My intent was to just do one side of the yard at a time.  However, a neighbor who was also working in his yard all day was kind enough to give me a consult (he designs for a living) said that "we" really needed to do both sides at once, to see how they play off of each other.  At that point I had already dug up all the stones on the right hand side, and was clearly committed (or, ahem, should BE committed, as in, to the Nut Hut) so I went along willingly to the other side, and yanked out those stones too.  I don't know how long the borders had been in place; certainly a very long time. Original? As in 1929 original? I don't know. But they pulled up fairly easily once you wedged the shovel tip underneath one.  But I'll tell you: they are heavy little buggers. I think they are gorgeous though, and I'm pleased to have so many to work with.

I took a stab at laying out the shape of a the new borders.  Lots of stooping and lifting.  (Red later told me he heard a tip about using a garden hose for that - it moves around easily and you can eyeball what the new border will look like.  Alas...)  Then I went and got my neighbor for the umpteenth time, to evaluate my efforts.  (He was far enough along in HIS project that he had a glass of wine. Undoubtedly making him even more creative....)  We scampered around the lawn, moving stones, stepping across the street to survey the changes and coming back to rearrange.  I'd rearrange, and he'd look. (His whippet, Butler Matthew, would lounge inside the new border...)  Then I'd step away for a better view, and he'd rearrange while I looked.  It went on and on.  But I was so grateful for the second eye.  I'm good at the execution, but creative design is not always my strong suit.  (It's Just That My People are Nordic.)

As you've no doubt noted in previous posts, I often forget to take enough "before" photos -- and this project is no different.  I didn't take one single "before" shot of the left side!  But it is easy enough to see in the photos where the old border was.  And I didn't take one single "in-progress" photo.  So just close your eyes and pretend, and here are some 8-hour time lapse photos... lol.

The right side:

There was much discussion about if the border should hug the mulch circle around the tree, or meander down diagonally to the front right corner of the yard.  For now, hugging the tree (Tree Hugger!) prevailed.

All of that grass to the right of new swoopy border will get removed... (Daunting Task #44)  I'm working on giving it away - it's healthy - and it's too much to go into my compost tumblers.

And the left:

To the left of (behind) the new border -- all that mess is just the turf I dug up to place the stones.  The previous border was tucked up under the shrubs,  against their trunks.  (No room there to use the shovel to get the stones pulled out - I literally crawled into the shrubs on my hands and knees with a trowel.  I told my neighbor to come and look for me if I didn't make it out... ) The old border made a hard right at the rosemary, by the gazing ball.)

And this is standing on the sidewalk, looking up towards the house.  That's the edge of my butterfly garden.  I love how the border makes lazy curves like water.

That part of the border used to look like this - photo from 2011.

Oy.  Rigid.

Here's a Painted Lady enjoying a calendula bloom:

My next step will be to pull out the lawn, and start working the beds for planting... I think that work will be much more taxing than pulling and laying the border stones.  But, as I said, I knew I was tackling a large project.  Onward and upward.