Garden -- soil

Actually, it doesn't matter what soil you have if you want to garden.  Check around at garden shops and see if they sell fully composted shredded leaves.  If  they do, you're golden.  Remember, not wood chip or wood bark mulch.  That stuff will ruin your garden. 

BTW You have one more step in planning after this post so wait one more week before you spend any money.

If you have some trees, get a leaf shredder and run them through it every year, instead of bagging them for trash pickup.  I spend about $60 a year for bagged leaf compost and there are electric shredders for about $180 so it will take about 3 years to pay for itself.  You should be using this compost around the tree as well.

Plenty of sites can teach you how to do composting.  Here is one.
http://compostguide.com/using-leaves-for-composting/

Anyway, scrape the grass off the place you've chosen for your garden, or put down a bottomless red cedar planter which you can buy online.  You will have to assemble it yourself and that will take a power tool.  I know that from experience.

Layer your compost 2 inches deep where you scraped the grass off, or fill the planter to within an inch from the top.

And you're ready to plant.

I posted this part now in case you like the idea of composting your leaves, because that takes a while.  DON'T buy seeds until you read next week's post, because you still have some planning to do.

And for those who want to plant in containers or place out some flower pots, more power to you, but use compost and not the "topsoil" or other bagged stuff that, for example, my grocery store carries.

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