February 2010

The Bohemians are in full swing for Spring – new and current clients are emailing and calling in preparation and we are still accepting clients. At the end of last year, new clients made Christmas wishes for gardens in 2010. Our first client to get their Christmas wish had an existing garden space that needed refurbishing.
This northwest Austin garden had great soil that was just waiting for dry weather to break ground.
We had 2 glorious days of sun in mid February to begin our work. The original space was wonderful and plentiful. The garden needed set pathways to make the space more usable and soil amendments to add nutrients for the Spring.

When anyone plans out a garden it is good to designate pathways from garden beds to preserve the health of your garden soil. Avoid stepping on your garden soil. Keep your garden beds between 3 and 4 feet wide. It is also a good idea to add natural slow release fertilizer (Medina Granular was used here) and a boost of Nitrogen from a low cost, natural cottonseed meal. We like using newspaper as a natural, biodegradable weed barrier and then cedar mulch over it. Walking and kneeling on mulch is more comfortable than stone but it needs to be refreshed as it degrades. Adding natural material onto the soil keeps the surface permeable for not only rainfall but living creatures like earthworms.