Gardening with Mind & Soil

Gardening with Mind & Soil Low maintenance gardening tips and tricks for how to garden and grow food (with a side of chronic pain + existential rants). My back hurts. You can too!

I grow a vegetable garden anyway.

**I am a beginner. 36 yr old female, mother of four littles with no landscaping training 😆 with only online inspiration ...
10/04/2025

**I am a beginner. 36 yr old female, mother of four littles with no landscaping training 😆 with only online inspiration blazing my trails lol***
Almost complete! I started building this 75’ by like 10’ landscaping berm last summer. My husband was busy with other projects but I REALLY wanted to get it started. So at 7 months pregnant I started creating this on my own. I got resourceful and found three different people needing to dump dirt somewhere. They all delivered to my house for free. My awesome neighbor came over with his small tractor to help dump buckets of dirt down the berm while I spread it with a shovel.
I forgot to mention I had already spray painted the outline of my berm area and manually edged the whole thing.. jumping on my edger hundreds of times at 8 months pregnant 🙈😂 in 90 degree weather 🤪
It was our first year with a pool so I definitely had some nice dips in there after my work was done.
Many of my plants you see were transplanted by me. I’d find people on FB marketplace, craigslist etc who wanted trees or bushes removed for whatever reason. I’d personally go dig them up and bring them home. My favorite, being the big green Japanese maple on the far right of my berm. The branches underneath the canopy are so neat. I paid $50 for it but put in some hard working removing it from the couples property..
This year, I had more free dirt delivered because the soil had compacted over winter and I wanted to build it up a bit more. I needed more surface area for my new plants to go in before mulch was added.
My husband has time off this summer so he mulched the whole berm yesterday. It’s looking beautiful. I am very pleased with it ☺️ The backside still needs mulch though. Eventually a nice wood horse fence will be placed on the backside of the berm to fence in our pasture. I’m excited for that extra esthetic.
I found a wholesale mill outfit locally to me. It’s where the landscape supply company’s get their product from. It’s a minimum of 10 yards because the size of bucket they use. It’s mostly semi trucks and large rigs picking up product there. My father in law drove his dump truck and got two loads of mulch for us. But we saved a lot of money. Instead of paying $45 a yard for mulch, we paid $12.50 a yard 👏🏻👏🏻 This has allowed us to get much more beautiful mulch for less.
If anyone has anything they’d like to add let me know! What should we add next? 😄

Every spring I start marigold seeds in containers, and then transfer them to the ground.  So easy to grow, and flowers a...
10/04/2025

Every spring I start marigold seeds in containers, and then transfer them to the ground. So easy to grow, and flowers all summer long! Pick the seeds for the next season in September, and the cycle goes on.

When my sister was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer last spring, I felt completely helpless. Amy had always been my rock - ...
10/04/2025

When my sister was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer last spring, I felt completely helpless. Amy had always been my rock - the strong one who helped me through my divorce, who taught my kids to garden, who never missed a single important moment in our lives.
"I just want to see my flowers bloom one more time," she told me during a particularly rough chemo session. Her garden had always been her sanctuary, but she was too weak to tend it anymore. The thought of her not making it to spring broke something inside me.
That night, I couldn't sleep. At 3 AM, I found myself googling "how to make flower balls" and ordering supplies. When they arrived, I set up a crafting station in her spare bedroom where she was staying with me. Every evening after she fell asleep, I'd sit there for hours, carefully attaching artificial flowers to those foam spheres.
I chose all her favorites - the bright yellow marigolds she grew from seed every year, the pink zinnias that lined her walkway, the purple cosmos that attracted her beloved hummingbirds. Each flower I attached felt like a little prayer, a tiny rebellion against the unfairness of it all.
My kids joined in, making it our secret project. "Aunt Amy's forever garden," my 7-year-old called it.
Three weeks and countless hot glue burns later, we hung them from the porch ceiling right outside her bedroom window. When the morning sun hit them, casting flower-shaped shadows across her bed, she opened her eyes and gasped.
"You brought my garden to me," she whispered, tears streaming down her face.
Those flower balls became our message board. Whenever she had a rough day, I'd attach a new flower. When her doctor called with improved scan results, we added yellow roses - her victory flower. The neighbors started contributing too, bringing flowers from their gardens for me to preserve and add to our hanging garden.
Amy found an amazing community of gardeners on the Tedooo app who sent her seeds and plants from across the country (we thought Tedooo was only for shopping handmade or connecting with crafters, but nope!). On her good days, we'd pot them together on the porch under her flower balls, planning a garden she wasn't sure she'd live to see.
But she did.
One year later, those flower balls still hang on my porch, a bit faded now from the sun. Amy is in remission, and the real garden we planted beneath them is bursting with life - seedlings from gardening friends she met during her darkest days, who carried her through with their knowledge and hope.
Sometimes the gardens that heal us most aren't the ones we dig in the earth, but the ones we create for each other when the ground seems too hard to break.

I installed this trench drain right outside the garage because water kept pooling every time it rained hard. I built a w...
10/04/2025

I installed this trench drain right outside the garage because water kept pooling every time it rained hard. I built a wooden frame, poured the concrete, and set the drain channel right in the middle. It’s connected to a PVC pipe underneath that redirects water away from the foundation. Took some effort, but now the garage stays dry and the whole area looks cleaner and more finished. Totally worth the DIY.

My neighbor Lisa has officially won the award for most ridiculous garden supervisor. Every evening around six, she puts ...
10/04/2025

My neighbor Lisa has officially won the award for most ridiculous garden supervisor. Every evening around six, she puts on that hotdog costume and heads out to inspect her lettuce with her cat trailing behind.
I thought it was just a one-time thing when I first spotted her through my kitchen window. Maybe a costume left over from Halloween, maybe she lost a bet with her grandkids. But no, this is apparently her daily routine now. The cat seems completely unbothered by the whole situation, just follows along like this is totally normal while Lisa waters her seedlings in full hotdog regalia.

Added timber edging
10/04/2025

Added timber edging

Cool idea
10/04/2025

Cool idea

I will be very happy to buy this plant! My neighbor has one, but I'm not sure what it's called. This blooms every year a...
10/04/2025

I will be very happy to buy this plant! My neighbor has one, but I'm not sure what it's called. This blooms every year and remains blooming for most warm months. Thank You..

Turned a regular garden urn into a creepy Halloween prop with just a fake skull and skeleton hands. Just position them l...
10/04/2025

Turned a regular garden urn into a creepy Halloween prop with just a fake skull and skeleton hands. Just position them like they're crawling out of the pot!

My mom puts cat food out for some feral cats and this one raccoon has decided the food is for him and so is the cat bed....
10/04/2025

My mom puts cat food out for some feral cats and this one raccoon has decided the food is for him and so is the cat bed. He doesn’t even leave when my mom walks outside now.

Well, unfortunately, I don’t have a private little backyard Secret Garden area. All I have is this front yard to work wi...
10/04/2025

Well, unfortunately, I don’t have a private little backyard Secret Garden area. All I have is this front yard to work with so I put this little path in by myself yesterday I thought it turned out real cute. I was thinking of adding more architectural pieces just for interest, thoughts? Ideas?I know it’s pretty basic but it’s all I have to work with

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