both feet

Yesterday, we closed on the sale of our house in California. We didn't make a dime on the place, but it was a very good day indeed.

HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY.

I celebrated today by digging a fall garden bed next to the south side of the house. My seeds will be sown a little late, but I figure it can't hurt to spend a couple bucks to see what happens. And I like playing in the dirt.

Getting the top layer of grass off was the easy part.

Getting all the rocks out was not.
Wait til I show you my rock piles (yea, that's plural) in a future post.

Needless to say, I accumulated quite a few blisters today.

I've had this cheapie soil test kit for probably ten years now, so I wasn't sure how accurate it would be.

It said our pH was fairly neutral, but I'm skeptical about the NPK analysis
because none of the resulting colors were even on the chart.

That motherfucker right there required the wrecking bar to get out. I hate that rock.

Next time we're at Lowe's, I might pick up another soil test kit, but there's not really any doubt that I need nutrients, so I might just buy some bagged mushroom compost for now and work it in. It kills me to buy packaged compost, but I could only find one source of bulk mushroom compost, and that's southwest of Knoxville, so it may be another week or two before I get a bulk load in. The Tacoma bed only fits about a half cubic yard of material, so we're trying to figure out whether to rent a dump truck that will be able to fit several cubic yards (for building spring beds).

Ideally, I would have sheet mulched this area instead of digging and planted some crops that will loosen the soil without the need for back-breaking work, but I needed to get this done quickly so I can get a fall garden going. It sure didn't feel quick, though. And I still have about a third of it left to de-rock.

Sure feels good to now have both feet firmly planted on Tennessee soil! Literally and figuratively.