Sorry if this picture looks a little dark-I snapped it this evening and should probably have taken it tomorrow morning in sun.  But it’s been over a week since my last post.  I’ve had a lot of friends and neighbors who have struggled with their gardens this year.  Even SFGers.  Of all the basics of the SFG, getting the soil right is probably the most important.  After the initial purchase of the mix ingredients you won’t ever have to buy them again-if you make your own compost.  Besides being a great medium to grow in(actually the best), a good blended and finished compost also helps you to control other things like bugs and critters.  It’s not the total answer but it’s just another resource of things you can do to help in that area.  Making compost properly at home will be better than anything you’ll ever buy in a store.  It won’t even be close.  You can notice the rich black soil that I’ve just added to this box.  You can see why they call it “black gold.”  It hasn’t been watered at all in this picture.  Even though the pepper plant(left hand corner)and the spaghetti squash plants are doing fine, this added boost of fertilizer will make it grow even bigger and stronger.  There’s not one tablespoon of dirt in this soil.  It’s all kitchen scraps, straw, horse manure, spent garden produce, and leaves left over from fall.  If you’d like to learn more of the specifics of my compost operation, I cover this topic in my ebook which you can find on my site.  I think my results speak for themselves.

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