Busy busy - sexy gardener

Like the catchy blog title?  Sorry - had to.  In truth there's very little that's sexy about going to the dump to get free compost for the garden - but so much to feel good about anyway!

I went today with our old truck and it was so simple.  I pulled up.  Looked around and there was nobody around this huge pile of compost.  It said to wait for an attendant, but before I could turn around, a great big front loader was grinding its way over to me.  I was in and out in under 5 minutes!  Since this was FREE COMPOST week, I just drove away.

If your local landfill doesn't have a composting program, suggest it!  Ours has been around for years now.  Every year we use it for all sorts of needs in our garden.  Is it top notch soil?  Well, its for sure not potting soil, but it builds up beds beautifully, and this year, I am going to use my free soil to even out our crazy lumpy bumpy lawn.

The compost is made from clippings from local residents that are picked up on the same day as our garbage.  To this point it has been picked up every other week, with a break over deep winter.  Then it changed to garden clippings being picked up every two weeks with no break over winter.  Now it's picked up every week right through the year, all as part of our waste management program.

It's something to feel good about.

Going to the dump? For soil?

That's right lovelies, our dump is turning into a veritable paridise (or so it seems when I ignore the small mountain that is growing out there on the flats....)

I can get soil from the dump - a truck load for like $25.  It's really silly.  I am off to do that this morning.  Then I have to deal with getting it out of the truck and onto our property.  That's a whole other issue.  But let me tell you - this could turn me into the svelte beach goddess that I was always meant to be, so whatever, I am all for it...

Anyway,  I have also been given instructions from hubby about items to buy and do.  Here it is:

- get two small rosemary plants
- rip out ugly hedging plants around fire hydrant (yes!!!!  happy to...)
- find shade tree for hot side of house
- find out what those lovely red-bark bushes are and get them
- create "natural fence" with above-mentioned red-bark bushes
- level out lawn with soil
- seed lawn


There are actually about 500 other things - but this list has exhausted me already - so i am just plain old walking away so that I can cope with item number one.

The Garden Project

Well.  It turns out that I mostly hate projects around the house.  Who can stand them really?  I have one major problem though: my husband (love him!) likes to create random garden beds around the house - but is far too busy to actually maintain them!

Grrr....  So this spring we are out in the garden trying to tackle the chaos.  I should say that we live in a neighbourhood much like the Brady bunch neighbourhood.  Hubby's wild English country garden plantings are not always appreciated by the neighbours.

Now we've been here long enough that I am not entirely sure that I can worry about making them all that happy but nonetheless - I don't want it looking TERRIBLE.

Of course, do I know anything about gardening?  No.  So this really is for those of us who look at pretty flowers and feel that there for sure is a giant magician in the sky -- oh wait, that would be God - who makes flowers so darn lovely, and well, invasive too....

I will let you know what we get up to as we go along...