D is for Dreams

And I'm dreaming of dirt, as in garden dirt. High on my list of priorities this year is improving my soil, in large part so it holds moisture better. My raised beds look pretty good:

It's not black Minnesota soil, but it's a lot better than the anemic prairie dust in other places around the property. It's also free of pesticides and herbicides. All that improvement came from clean top soil, compost, and poop from local cows and chickens.

I worry about what I'll be able to grow around here as the weather heats up. We're still in a major drought area and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. Water is plentiful and cheap in my town, a situation that says more about bad leadership than reality. Conservation will have to start soon or we'll simply run out of water like the next town over. My planning includes all kinds of sustainable gardening methods from all over the world, like my own keyhole gardens - I'll talk about those in subsequent posts. But this map hints at what is in store for a large section of the U.S. this year.

Dreams - I hope there will be more to my gardening efforts than that. I'd like to be able to grow and put up most of my vegetables for the next year. I've never succeeded in that, but I think it's a worthy goal. Have you ever tried it?

Speaking of dreams, here's a terrific book by a city gal who met her true love and took a completely different career and life path into The Dirty Life.

Kristen Kimball now works a draft-horse powered farm with her husband. I loved this book, and her blog is a fair treat too. Be sure to bookmark it and visit often. Look at the dirt in her seed flats!