Making Potting Soil

When you pot up plants to share or just to plant your containers, do you mix your own potting soil?

I do.
A number of years ago I listened to my good friend Gianna give a lecture on container plants. She shared her tip of mixing together potting soil and compost in a 2 to 1 ratio. That means that if you put two buckets of potting soil in your wheelbarrow, you add one bucket of compost (or top soil or aged manure, what ever you have).

I love a compost and manure mixture so that's what I order for my garden. Even though I have a huge compost heap, I just haven't been able to produce as much compost as I need. This compost/manure mixture is what I add to my potting soil.


Potting soil by itself is very light and dries out quickly. There are potting soils that have additives to retain water and even potting soils with fertilizers in them but I prefer to stay as natural as possible. What I add instead is a nice healthy scoop of Milorganite which is an organic fertilizer made from sludge.

This year I've been adding a secret ingredient, a nice big couple of handfuls of shredded leaves. They do wonders for the potting soil, making it so nice, fluffy and hopefully, healthy.

Time will tell how this potting soil mixture works but I think it's going to be fantabulous!

Sheer Exhaustion

After two days of perfect gardening weather there are only two words to describe the way I feel, Sheer Exhaustion.

If you look closely at this photo you'll see all kinds of tools and pots in the garden. Plants have been dug, weeds have been pulled, divisions have been replanted and compost has been spread. Yet, when I look at the garden all I see is a monumental amount of work still to be done.

Squeezed in between the never ending job of dividing and potting plants, I played a bit with the decorative accents in the garden. None of them are finished but they are ready for their finishing touches. This bicycle still needs a basket on the handlebars with some sweet spring blooms.

Don finished making a platform for one of my two iron beds. This one will be used to hold plants that are for sale. In other words, it's the "sale bed".

Out front near the street I've had this Whiskey Barrel planter for a number of years now. It's been filled with Hosta and backed up with an old wooden handtruck. Although I've received many compliments on it, I had envisioned it cascading with plants.

Now it's tipped over so it looks like "OOPS". As soon as I find an extra hour or two I'll go out and get a flat of annuals to make the cascade portion. I haven't decided yet if I want to buy a flat of pansies now or wait 3 weeks and get Impatiens. My guess is the Impatiens will be the winner but I hate having nothing there right now.

Tomorrow is the first of a dozen lectures that I'll be doing at the local elementary schools. I'm bringing along a praying mantis egg case, lots of soil samples, seeds and we'll be making pots out of recycled newspaper. I can't wait!

Melanie

The "To-Do" list

Do you keep "To-Do" lists? Sometimes I need to write list after list and other times I just don't bother. Right now I've got a list of things "to-do" that's a mile long.

Much as I'd like to accompany this post with some inspirational new photos, I'm stuck with the old photos. Once again it's raining cats and dogs out there. At this rate I'd better learn how to build an ark.

Yesterday we worked from sun up to sun down out in the garden. We made great strides in cleaning out the shade beds, setting up the potting area, putting out the birdhouses and so much more. Unfortunately, today all I can do is dream up more things to add to my to-do list.

While not on this weeks list, the stairs shown above have been decimated by chipmunks. Right now there's no plants charmingly spilling out, just lots of displaced dirt. It's something that will have to be addressed later this month for sure.

This weeks' to-do list has:
Divide, divide, divide
Finish setting up potting area
Start shredding last years leaves for mulch
Sift compost
Finish cleaning out the shade beds
Attack the early spring weeds that are just beginning to pop
Buy some pansies and get them planted
Create vignette in the garden that makes me smile! (more on this in a future post)

Well, ok, I'll leave it at this as there's only so many hours in a day.

What's on your to-do list?