Sunday in the Garden

Well,
   Actually, not. This is an update of sorts, only to report that I was stalled by the weather.  It poured rain today, so I was unable to be outside chopping up dead branches.

  Ok, call me a wimp, if you must, but I only have 1 pair of tennis shoes that fit, and no rainboots.  It's not sandal weather yet, so that was not a viable option.

  Oh, sure...I guess I could have brought the branches indoors, and chopped them up in the living room.  NOT!  So, I wait upon the pleasure of Mom Nature for the next dry day.

  Meanwhile, I can explain the very 'beachy' appearance of the area in yesterday's photos.  The area actually was a 'beach' of sorts a couple of summers in a row.  It does get hot here, and we have one of those 10-foot-across by 3-foot-deep pools that can be set up seasonally.  There was a lot of construction-grade clean sand sitting in a huge pile in the yard.  This was leftover from the process of building our shop back in 2004; someone, it seems, (not mentioning any names...), calculated incorrectly how much we'd need for the stucco.

  Since we have an annual BBQ around the 4th of July each year, we decided to cover up the existing dirt with the excess sand, making a 'beach' in the pool area.  It worked well, as it did not adhere to the kids' feet as much as the 'normal' dirt underneath.  Our dirt here is a sandy soil, but is much, much finer, and very much 'dirt colored.'  This makes a mess if tracked into the pool. With an astro-turf mat, a foot bath pan, and the clean coarse sand, the pool stayed nice and clean.

  Not so much the house, though.  The normal sandy dirt is so fine that it blows in through the very tiniest of crevices, and keeping the house dusted is a losing battle.  Therefore, I will probably have to till in some soil amendments such as peat to prepare for the garden.  Between that and the coarse sand, it should be a very nice growing medium.

   And that's all I was able to do today--make further plans. 

Meanwhile, for your further reading entertainment, you might want to check out my other blogs, featured in the right-hand sidebar. 

Cheers!