Neighbor Mike taught me something about soil last spring

I ran into this older guy Mike while I was digging up a corner of my backyard in Austin to put in some raised beds. He stopped and watched me for a minute, then said "you're gonna fight that clay for years if you don't mix in some compost now." I had just bought a bag of garden soil from Home Depot and figured that was fine. He walked over to his truck and grabbed a shovel full of his own homemade compost that looked like dark chocolate cake. I'll never forget how rich and crumbly it was compared to my dusty dirt. He was right, my first batch of tomatoes barely grew because the clay just turned into bricks after a rain. Now I'm building my own compost pile in the corner and it's almost ready to use. Has anyone else had a random neighbor drop some wisdom that saved your whole project?

2 comments

2 Comments

troy_sanchez81mo ago

I mean my buddy Kevin had this old guy next door in San Antonio who basically taught him how to water stuff without killing it. Kevin was drowning his peppers every day and wondering why they looked sad, and the neighbor just goes "you're loving them to death, let the soil dry out a little between drinks." Now Kevin's got this whole system where he sticks his finger in the dirt like a weirdo before he waters anything and his plants actually look great. Funny how the people who've been gardening for like forty years just know stuff that doesn't come in any bag from the store.

iris_mason8829d ago

Oh man, I was totally the same way with my houseplants a few years ago. I used to water everything on a strict schedule like it was a science project and couldn't figure out why my fern looked like it was giving up on life. But once I started just checking the soil with my finger first, suddenly everything started thriving way better than before.