Introduction

Okay, so I've created a gardening blog, primarily to help me in becoming a better gardener, and I thought between this and a paper notebook I might actually be able to keep track of the things I've done, things I plan to do, etc with the garden. Currently, the garden is a 12'x6' raised bed in the northwest corner of our backyard. However, I have commandeered several other spots, one of which is about a 3'x5' flowerbed between our patio and house, which I created initially last year by removing the annoying 'landscape gravel' that was in the spot and digging in a bunch of peat moss and "topsoil" from the construction site behind us. This year, I expanded it's width by about half to create the current space. I also have 2 tomato plants in relatively small (for a tomato) pots on the patio, which I am terrible at remembering to water every day, and a few green bean plants tucked into my front flower bed.

We have 1 3" diameter (approx) compost bin/pile on the south side of our house, and I want to build 2 more and move them to them to the space between our fence and the property line (about 5 feet by 60 feet), however that necessitates putting in a gate in the back of the fence, which previous owners who built the fence never did. Go figure. We also have 3 rain barrels, each holding approx 45 gallons, which I built myself (with minimal help from my father) about 2 weeks ago. They are working great. The cost was $30 for the barrels, plus about another $30 in parts for the barrels, downspout connects, a hole saw, etc. I'd like to build 2-3 more.