Well hello to everyone who reads this.
I am new 04/30/06 to DG's.
I am in San Antonio and have been having trouble finding members from SA. I thought of trying this out tosee if they come forward. Don't get me wrong non- San Antonians, I want to develop friendships with ya'll too. But, I work alot (job and family) and would like to be apart of a group close by. I hope someday to be able to get with all you Texans for a RU, plant trade, ect. but for now I really can not see it happening until things get calmer. Wife is a Public school teacher, kids in school, me on the night watch(which means I'm the parent for homework watch after school and dinner maker). Leaves me pretty grounded. I have to fly around with the gardening and planting here and there and quickly.
Well, thought I would try to set this up for a place to quickly go and say hi, catch up and share ideas. I moved into my house in 2004 and have decided since I am going to be here awhile, I need to go ahead and start my gardens. I have been holding back for my gardening for over 12 years. Now it is time. I'm planning and sceaming, need ideas and want to share thoughts.
I will try to post pics. of what space I have to work with.
Hi to all,
Calvin
San Antonio hoopla
Hi Calvin. We don't live in SA, but we go there often. Or atleast DH does. We have a business and he makes supply runs to SA about 3 times a month. Usually I stay home, but not always. Have you lived in SA long? I can think of 2 DG members in SA - loudigger and htop. There probably are more.
hey silverfluter,
Thank you for the reply. We, my family, goto fredricksburg when we can. It is only about 1 and 1/2 hrs. from my home. Well Enchanted rock is at least. Hope to meet with you and your DH someday.
I have lived in SA since NOV. 2000. From then till August 2004 in an Apt. then we finally moved to our very own home...... HEY. It is great, and I finally get the garden.
I hope that the SA DGers do seethis site.
To all: Don't hesitate to talk here I wan't to meet all.
calvin
Hello Calvin, I wish we lived closer, then I could help more, but whatever I can do long distance I will be very happy to do it.
Good for you, starting your gaden at last, you will get a lot of exercise and have a lot of fun.
I am sure that there will be people around you willing to meet and help.
In the meantime Welcome to Dave's Garden, you are in for a great time.
Josephine.
thanks for the greeting frostweed(josephine)
Calvin
I'm in SA fairly frequently...my dad lives there...welcome to Dave's!
Debbie
Hi Debbie.
Where abouts do you visit.? What area I mean.
Okay, its my day-off todayand I got pics of my backyard. approx. 40' wide and 75 to80' long. Any sugestions. I know I want to seperate with a gate the veggies(add to the gate vines and flowers to attract pollinators) and a deck for enjoyment of the whole yard garden thingon pleasant days. Other suggestions will be appreciated. if it worked with the pic post then you would be standing in the southwest corner of my covered patio.
calvin
Air Force Retirement Village--Tower II to be exact (the newer one right next to the golf course--he would suffer "withdrawel symptoms" if he lived out of walking distance to a golf course--LOL). And I have friends in other parts of town.
I'm actually in Austin, SA, Kerrville, Fredricksburg, Navasota, and Waco fairly frequently...at least once a month in one or the other locations. I have a partnership in a business with 2 other people (kinda a "second" job) which requires one of us to be somewhere else most weekends. And I travel alot June-Aug because I don't work at my "main job" then.
Nice "palette" you got there to fill however you want--as opposed to having to work with an existing landscape. That's the way it was with my house...it was new 12 years ago and I threatened the builder with "near death" if he put in a "landscape pkg"....LOL
Debbie
This message was edited May 3, 2006 10:00 PM
This message was edited May 3, 2006 10:00 PM
Hi, Calvin! I live just outside Bexar Co. in NE Medina Co. We go into San Antonio frequently and used to live there in the city. San Antonio has a lot of different types of soil, so that affects what kind of plants might do well in your yard. I'm dealing with caliche and limestone where I live now, so have raised beds and keep bringing in topsoil and making compost to make it easier for plants to survive and flourish.
Yes, Calvin you do need to find out what kind of soil you have before you invest a lot in plants. I don't know what the soil is like there, but htop lives in that area I think. She'll probably find this thread soon. She has been a huge help to me. I do know that she has raised beds everywhere and the dirt she brought in was from Gardenville.
And congratulations on finally getting your own house. I didn't bcome a gardener til we moved here. Had no interest in it at all. Having this house has made a huge difference. Our lot is fairly large for a city lot and our dirt is not too bad. We are near the bottom of a gentle slope and near a creek.
You do have a nice empty slate to start with. Let your imagination run wild. That's the fun of gardening.
Welcome to Dave's Garden. You will enjoy it here.
About 30 years ago, my first husband had a nice big back yard with a clean slate like yours. It was in San Diego, and the ground was mostly rock and clay with no hope for drainage of any kind, but he really wanted a vegetable garden. He did the largest part of the yard with the usual grass and raised flower beds around the outside edge, next to the fence and house. But the neat part of his design, was that he built an 8-foot lattice fence with arbor gate, between the main yard and the veggie garden. He covered the lattice and arbor on the yard side with grape vines and the veggie side was covered with tomatoes. Then he built many raised beds for the veggies, and no matter how funky they looked during the changing seasons, you could not see them from the rest of the yard, and it looked great! It kind of gave the impression that it was the entrance to an enchanted garden.
Just one idea.
Sheral
Linda,
Perhaps you can help 4paws in this thread wondering what kind of soil Boerne has. I'm trying to tell her this is a great town to live in, she's looking for small town. And Boerne was just rated top 10 in the USA for many variables.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/598305/
My soil mostly is clay. This causes some drianing issues but I am currently working on the notion of reconditioning my soil. I know that it takes several years to change the clay composition, so until then I have about the top 5" worth of yard to work with. Adding soil gets expansive, so gardens will go in slowly. I look at this a way to get my ideas straight. In the south east corner of the yard ,I have an 8'x8'x1' raised bed and plan on adding two more 8'x4'x1' raised beds this fall. My shade gardens and sun gardens I would like to add directly to the ground.
I get my dirt from fertilegardens on 1604 loop close to culebra. It is cheap and they provide lots of different soils to choose from including compost. I have yet to start composting.
lily13,
Your first husbands plan is right-on with what I wanted to do to my yard. I also wanted to add a wood deck off of the house and a pathway leading to a gazebo under the trees. Even a pond and mini-water fall near the gazebo. This idea elimenates almost all if not all ofthe tuf grass and bare spots I currently have. How and where and what goes in the ground is always the hardest and most fun part of gardening and landscaping.
Thanks
Hi, Calvin,
Wecome to Dave's. I live in northwest San Antonio just off Culebra and close to Sea World, I visit Fertile Gardens a lot. It is just up 1604 from me.
Nivlac,
Try Gardenville, that's where we get our dirt and mulch. It is great stuff!
Aimee
Aimee,
where is gardenville?
calvin
Think lots of mulch! Builds really good soil...from the top down....also diversification....
Link:
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/592621/
Debbie
This message was edited May 5, 2006 5:37 AM
Link to Gardenville:
http://www.garden-ville.com/
Started by an organic gardener and author, Malcom Beck. In searching for this link I came across an incredible garden by a San Antonian. Check this site out!
http://ragnasgarden.anycities.com/
Check this Austin Garden out:
http://www.soulofthegarden.com/
The ace hardware (not a typical ace hardware--family owned business) near my house has been selling Gardenville products for over 20 years; great products; good reputation in the gardening world for years.
Debbie
Hi htop,
I am sorry, I did not mean to skip over your greetings to me. My wife probably pass by you Mon.- Fri. She teaches at Taft High. Maybe we can all meet somday. Thank you for the greeting.
calivn
dmj1218,
You know what, i was thinking the samething. I was thinking about just layering the entire back yard with various mixed mulches. But after last night (very bad storm) I realized that since my yard is sloped heavy rains and hail would only cause a huge pile of none decompsed mulch to accumilate along my fence. To much Added work to me, I would rather send that time used in gardens and veggies collection. I feel I will have to take my time and mulch only where I plant.
I want to change the clay soil f the entire back yard, really. not just where i plant.
calvin
Apparently Garden-Ville's old web site has changed a LOT. No retail bulk price list and their two San Antonio locations are just listed along with other companies that sell their products. What gives? I hope their NE side locations aren't disappearing like the NW side location did. I've been really irritated since they sold out the 1604 & Bandera location. I still have Fertile Gardens, but they don't carry a few of the things that I want, and Evans Road is far, so I don't get over there much. I like buying some things in bulk, either loading up my truck or filling the bags myself (cheaper, you know).
Question?,
(I received a brochure add in one of my mail orders this year. It is for Amazoy zoysia grass. It's claims to fame are what I am looking for. Just do not want to get burned as it would cost approx. 200$ to fix my yard up with this stuff. )
Any body know about this stuff?
Thanks Calvin
Calvin--I have a steep slope to my yard--mulch does not move.
Calvin try this link http://www1.zoysiafarms.com/ it may give u info u need to know. i hope someone here has a feedback for u. good luck!
edited to add another link with more info http://cals.arizona.edu/maricopa/garden/old_archives/arid_gardener/2000-April/001621.html
This message was edited May 5, 2006 3:37 PM
Calvin, I am afraid we are going to drive you crazy, but if you are still thinking about solutions to your clay soil check out how I solved mine, here is a link to my site.
http://www.texasstar.org/index.php?pg=soil-improvement
If you do it you will be very happy with the result.
Josephine.
Calvin, the good mulch doesn't wash away, but I've heard that pine bark chunks do. Maybe that's what you're thinking? If I lived in SA, I would absolutely order from Gardenville, or go over there with strong sacks or trash cans and shovel it. When we need that stuff, we take all our trash cans to a place called Oma's here and fill them up. They charge 1 dollar per 5 gallon bucket full, which comes out to 7 dollars for a 35 gallon can. Gardenville may be more expensive, but it beats paying a dellivery fee or buying it in bags. And shoveling is good excercise!
And Debbie is right about the mulch. The only thing more important than mulch is compost, and it's pretty hard to have too much.
Thanks Silver....and a little bat guano in the transplanting hole's a good thing too!
SA folks--I just picked a few herbs up at a nursery here today (like I really needed a few more after 5 new mints at the RU--LOL) and they had a tag in them from "Natures Herb Farm San Antonio, TX 78253" Is that a retail as well as wholesale place? Anyone know? If its a retail place I'll have to put it on my "must visit" list next time I come over there to see my dad. Really nice healthy plants.
Debbie
Calvin,
In Jerry Bakers book (master gardener) Great Green Book of Garden Secrets p. 224 he talks about this zoysia grass quite a bit. It is good in our area (late frosts). It takes 2 or more years to fill in, it can't handle even the slightest bit of shade, does not grow as fast or full as Bermuda (which I've read most people on DG hate anyways)....but just to give you some notes Jerry had on it. It is fairly disease free and insects don't like it. It is tough and resists wear.
Linda,
They have a Gardenville on Bitters behind the airport. I go to the Evans Rd location by Rolling Oaks Mall. They do have a "Menu" they call it at their store of all their bulk prices.
My nephew used to live in San Antonio and put in an expensive zoysia lawn. He said it was worth every dollar.
We put No-Float cypress mulch from Home Depot in several beds and between the raised beds in the veggie garden and have no problems with mulch moving. It does tend to decompose after a while, and I add a bit more each year.
I like hardwood for mulching beds....helps to "acidify" our Texas soils a bit more. But I also use alot of oak leaves, pine needles, and grass clippings from the yards I know are organic (basically the neighbors who won't spend money on fertilizing their grass--and mine because I am all organic). I'm hoping, my 17 year old is out finding me the last bags of leaves from all the neighborhoods around here for mother's day...she knows that's the one gift that will make me happier than anything in the world. And it doesn't cost a thing.
I go to the "home" part of Josephine's link quite often for the quiet, meditative value of the pictures and slide show. This guy in Austin is also one of my "mentors" and on his older articles he has the same advice for building soil. Mulch, compost, organic matter, the more the better...that's the key to gardening in Texas (and probably everywhere).
http://www.soulofthegarden.com/intro.html
Debbie
This message was edited May 5, 2006 8:36 PM
Debbie,
You are sooooo sweet not to expect purchased gifts for Mother's Day. I've seen many a mom be disappointed because they didn't get something specific they wanted bought for them. I'm gonna be the same as you....I don't need presents!
I usually get to go plant shopping for Mother's Day. I can't think of any "thing" I would like better than that! :-)
That runs a very close second Marylyn!
Debbie
Hi and welcome nivlac, (clever name :) ) I love to talk "dirt" and gardening. I started my landscaping here at "Dirtland" 7 years ago. It is 1/2 acre of never-gardened property where I had my little cottage built. It is a labor of love to garden in this clay, highly alkaline soil. I have learned so much from the weekend radio call in shows by local experts. Some shows are all organic, others use a combined approach to feeding and pest control. On Sat. 8am on AM 55, you can listen to Bob Webster. Or on AM 1310, you can hear Manuel Flores. At 10am on AM 1200 there is Orlando Martinez and my favorite from noon til 2p on Sat and Sun. on AM 930 there is Dr. Jerry Parsons and Dr. Calvin (Nivlac to you) Finch. You will get some conflicting advice from these various experts, but all knowledge is useful.
The best place of all is right here a DG. So happy you have joined us. SEEYA, Margie aka "Queen of Dirtland" loudigger
Thanks Margie for the info.
I am usually asleep at those radio times but from time to time I do get the weekends off and when I do I will surely listen in to them.
thank you
calvin
Debbie, that place you mentioned does sell retail. I don't know what days they're open, but you could call them.
Nature's Herb Farm
7193 Old Talley Rd Ste 7
San Antonio, TX 78253-4618
(210) 688-9421
My friend Sheila (she came to the RU with us) worked there for a while a few years back. She's really into herbs, so that's gotten me more into herbs.
Thanks Linda--are you near San Antoine? I'm gonna have to make that place...sounds like an interesting 'niche' nursery! I love good 'niche' nurseries. Bound to see stuff out of the ordinary there.
Alamo..does this sound like a place you'd like to go to? My dad's in SA so I'm over there a fair bit--for short periods of time, at a time--like an hour.
Anyone up for a visit there maybe this summer?
Debbie