ladyjanelly

According to my Texas gardening book, for my zone:

January:

• Move roses and Hydrangia
• Weed/dig the front flower bed I wanted to put in
• buy/plant hostas in the back yard shady-spot
• Plant early spring veggie seeds:
  • radish
  • lettuce
  • spinach
  • carrots
  • snow peas
  • onions
  • peppers

February

• move/split the ornamental border grasses
• buy/plant amarylis bulbs (I desperately want a couple of these.  Sooo pretty
• Buy/plant tomato seedlings
• plant spring veggie seeds:
  • corn
  • broccoli
  • beans

March:

• move/split the bearded Irises
• plant summer squash seeds
• fill in front yard flower bed (not sure yet what I'm sticking there.  Irises and daylilies and ??? )

So. Bought four 30-gallon garbage cans in Navy blue for my composting needs.

Best 44 bucks I've ever spent. So.

Advantage 1: Easy to turn. I just leverage one of them up on the patio (about 12" high). I don't even have to lift. Lay it on its side and scrape it out into the four lids and then dump it back in. Quick, easy, happy.

Advantage 2: They use solar power--the heat of the sun on the dark sides of them warm up the contents. No snow on those babies. Speeds the decomposition of plant matter.

Advantage 3: The unexpected joy of the cans is that if they're on the patio I can turn the lids upside down and use them as dirt-mixing trays or whatever and they're a perfect elbow-height working surface. Awesome.

Also bought a wheelbarrow even though I won't use it much in such a small yard. For the things I need it for I really do NEED it. So. Got a cheap one, should last near forever.

Picked up two different mechanical edgers to keep the grass in line.

And the big purchase and serious commitment to the whole green thing was an oldfashioned rotary lawn mower. No gas. No emissions. Not even electricity. Its byproduct is a stronger me. I thought an $90 risk wasn't too bad. It's like 2.5 times having the lawn guy out. So if I use it 3 times we're ahead in every way. Hopefully I'll get to play with it next week. Too cold this one.

EDIT:
The rotary mower is the coolest thing that ever was green(in use, I dunno about mfrg). It's about as hard to push through grass as a loaded cart through wal-mart. It chopped a 30 gallon pile of yard scraps into tiny bits in about 20 passes (maybe 3 minutes). I am sooo pleased. :)