Success!

Today we made the drive to The Natural Gardener on Old Bee Caves. This was our first trip there, and it was actually closer than I’d imagined.

Oh, boy. It was like Disneyland for dirt nerds! They really mind the details and you can tell, around every corner, that the people who put their time in really take pride in what they do. Sure, there’s a Buddha statue for sale, but they’ve staged the statue as though it were forty feet tall – complete with a miniature bamboo fence, finely bladed grass, and pebble path to the base for any 8 inch folks that may wish to pay tribute.

I think I was most excited by the tiny pots full of supplements. I got to touch and smell the different rock bits, mulch chips, soils, and sands. I make do with what the words tell me, but there’s no replacing the feel and the aroma of what goes in the soil.

We picked up some leather gloves to replace those lost to the Chainlink Removal Project. I found the largest floppy garden hat I’d ever seen, and almost got it…until the price tag showed its face. We did find section dedicated entirely to spot watering soaker hoses (and brought home the brochure.) A 5lb bucket of Rock Phosphate and a.receipt for the soil yard and we were off.

Pulling into the lot in front of piles of earthly bits, I eyed each pile. I wanted two. The rest could wait for other folks.

The truck wasn’t quite sure what to think of a cubic yard of well composted farm manure, but it made it just fine. Thirteen wheel barrows full later, and we had a beautiful garden bed with a pile for later.