Hello from PA

I am brand new to DG today. Already I sense it is a good place to be. I recently married, moved, left my job, and bought a new home. I left behind well established sun and shade gardens that were my santuaries, as well as a familiar city and good friends. I am now beginning to let go of all that was familiar and embrace this new adventure. Still new to gardening(my established garden had been someone elses baby that I adopted, expanded, and cared for) I am rather intimidated by my new blank canvas and new set of challenges(steeper grade, drainage issues, water ways, weeds, clay soil, etc.) I can also extend the intimidation factor to meeting new friends and getting established in this community. I am excited though to be able to share this adventure with others. Happy to be on board. :)

Hi welcome glad your here to..

Welcome....Two words....."Clay Buster"....I got it at the local feed store. Sure they have it most places. Nice to meet you!

Hi--I'm new here as well, and was interested when I saw you were from PA, as I am originally from the Poconos. I lived in Worcester just between Skippack and Norristown on Skippack Pike for a few years while hubby was finishing up his education and I worked in Pottstown while we were there. I hope you are going to enjoy your new gardening challenge and if you want to know where you can get GREAT peaches from a Mennonite farm in your area, drop me a line! I still dream about those peaches!

tmarie - welcome to daves garden from your neighbor in upstate new york. going to the poconos for a couple days starting tomorrow. where are you from originally??

niere - welcomed also in case i didn't say it the first time on this forum.

Gosh,I'm so bad with keeping up with this. Thank you for the welcome. Somermoone, thank you for the claybuster suggestion. Herbie, I am originally from NH, moved here from MD.
Welcome Niere-do you like where you live now? I live right next to Skippack! The peaches sound wonderful and I would really like to support local farmers whenever I can.
I haven't made it to the Poconos yet, but I'd like to.

Have a wonderful day!

Hi tmarie,
I'm from the opposite corner of Pa from you, but was in the same gardening situation as you 33 years ago. Was use to gardening in a rich soil as a child where you threw in the seed or plant and stand back. I moved to a clay soil where almost everything died.

This is what I did, start composting, if you have a spot in your yard just start building a pile, no fancy container needed. All your plant clippings, kitchen scraps, (NO meat, bones,& oil, things like that) leaves in the fall and grass clippings. When I started to build a bed, I would take a garden fork and start breaking up the clay and adding compost , bagged manure, and peat. It's a lot of work but well worth the effort.

Another thing I look for in my garden when I'm digging around is earth worms, if you find them the soil is good, no worms start adding compost. Worms are good!

Have fun and Welcome.

Chris

Here is a picture in late May of this year.