About me...

Because this journey is intensely personal, there will be times when my posts will be about more than just rebuilding the physical aspects of my life. They may be random and sometimes I think they may not even make sense to some. But whatever I post here will be as honest as I can make it, no punches pulled, telling it like it it. I hope that I can share some insight with others who might be going through a similar transitory period in their own lives. With luck and perseverence I know I will eventually successful in my new life. I have very high hopes for all of this but then I had those when Dave was alive, too. I am naturally a pretty optomistic person, I think.

Tomorrow I am getting a load of organic top soil delivered to my new spot. Even though it is more cost effective than some of the alternatives, it is still pretty expensive and I am only getting enough for now to fill in my raised beds so that I can finish off what I have already started.  I apologize for not being able to put up pictures lately, but my digital camera is not working at the moment. I have pictures on my phone that I can't take off just yet, so no way to use it, either. I should be able to get something up soon, though.

Anyway, I am excited about the dirt coming.  I priced using organic bagged topsoil and the price was around $8.00 for 2 cubic ft.  My raised beds are 48 and 60 square feet and to fill them to a depth of 6 inches I would need between 10-12 bags for each bed.  That is a lot of $$ for soil and the one I was pricing was actually being sold at Big Lots for well below the regular retail price at Lowes ($11.75). And this is Garden Soil and not meant to be used alone.

Potting soil is not what you want to use in the types of beds I am setting up. It is too light and will "settle" far too much to make it practical for my application.  I would have to add more soil later on and that would jack the cost up even farther. Plus organic potting soil is even more expensive than this garden soil and because it doesn't have any kind of wetting agent added to it, it is not very efficient for watering (I'll cover the why of that in another post). This Miracle-Gro Organic Garden soil has a lot of bark and other things in it that add to its bulk.  It is a good product, I guess, but not in this situation. 

The topsoil I am getting has been screened, solarized, and contains soil, creek sand, composted manure and other composted organic matter.  It is coming in at about $29.00 per cubic yard and that is a huge savings for me.  It will take roughly one cubic yard to fill the beds at the depth I mentioned. Obviously the difference dollarwise is worth the added cost of having the soil delivered. I checked with several suppliers and the cost for delivery ranged anywhere from per the number of cubic yards being delivered to a flat fee of around $85.00.  Factoring in even that cost, it would still be cheaper than bagged soils, if your beds were the size of these I am putting in. 

I have been saving newspapers to put down as a weed barrier and will get that down this weekend. Once that is done, I will put in the dirt, plant, water and mulch.  I will take you through that process sometime next week or as soon as I can get it up here on the blog here.

This is the soil I priced.