My Small Backyard Garden: August 2020

A Bit About My Soil Choice.

As always, I got my soil supply from this place near our old family home this past Tuesday.

I love the soil here because it is good, natural, earth. Not chemically treated or fertilized. Thus, most rich in welcome soil creatures and microorganisms ( though it did once, almost scare me to death with a black, shiny-skinned, 2 inch-long centipede in it ).

Also, because it is not pre-bagged in environmentally-unfriendly, suffocating and possibly toxic plastic bags.

The place is a small, home-based cow farm. Supplying soil is only a small part of the farm's business. They would only dig for the soil within ( sometimes outside ) their farm and mix it with cow manure ( often fresh one ), upon receiving orders from their customers.

They sell their soil in loads and have them transported to their customers' places in bullock carts. It cost only RM 50 per cart-full load of cow manure plus top soil including bullock cart transport within the town.

Cheap and convenient. Just a phone call to them would have the soil arrive at our place. But I took pity on those poor, old cows! So, I would go and take the soil from the farm myself every time instead, though it would mean having to clean my car a bit after that.

The farmer was often very accommodating to my request and prepared just a manageable one bag for me each time.

This is the bag of soil ( in a recycled sack ) awaiting my collection outside their house, that he got for me on the morning I ordered this past Tuesday. It is only RM 10.

I had since used it to partially fill up eight of my newly-bought pots and had some mixed fruit and vegetable seeds sown direct onto them.

Pray that some happy sprouts would emerge from them soon! Wish me luck! 😁

My Little, Patio, Backyard Garden In The Rain ( August 23rd., 2020 ).

A Little Garden Makeover.

Bird's-eye view of my 22ft. X 11ft. garden after the makeover:

Read the little makeover story here:

The worker at the hardware shop where I bought sixty, cheap sand bricks from some weeks back could not imagine how these, to him, most ordinary and unattractive sand bricks could make a garden looked great when I told him I was going to use them for a little makeover in my small garden.

Sand bricks - ready for the makeover:

It was not surprising he could not imagine it. For after all, these bricks were not made for decoration purposes.

But, why, you might wonder. Why did I choose these bricks and not those more decorative ones like granite or red bricks etc. ?

Well, I had two distinct reasons. These bricks were super cheap in cost ( only RM 0.24 per piece ) and look, and they came in the colour I wanted. So, they should perfectly blend in into my ordinary looking, concrete, patio garden. Or so I thought.

I was right. The outcome was really good. To me, at least. Using them to edge the pot areas had indeed enhanced the overall look of my rectangular-shaped, concrete, patio garden.

The garden looked much more beautiful and neater than before. Not that I dislike an unorganized or a wild-looking one. But that, having it neat, just seemed most appropriate for mine.

Before:

After:

And, with another twelve new pots added to it recently that resulted in the construction of a new pot area ( right in front of the garden's exit ), awaiting to be planted up, the garden is going to look even more fantastic and full soon! Hopefully!

Newly-bought pots: