If you ever get your garden anywhere near what your plans are, it would rate a big spread in the OG magazine! Sounds fabulous! Please take photos for us as you go along.

I'll try to take photos, but I don't know if I'll ever get it to what I have envisioned. Nice to dream, anyways. I definitely know I need a plan, because this buying of plant material on impulse and just plunking it wherever just isn't working out. I am also still working on convincing DH that we absolutely NEED to harvest & store roof rainwater, that we can safely redirect our greywater (big order, since he would be doing all the plumbing) for irrigation, and that since we need to do earthwork on the place anyways (bumpy bumpy, BUMPY out in the yard), that we really need to make swales while we're at it. I figure this will take 5 years, minimum, and probably longer. Since I hope to get as many of the plants I want/need from seed and cuttings instead of outright buying them, I need time anyways.

And as far as an OG spread...
Sure, I'd have OG come down to take pictures of my lovely yard with a doublewide plopped 50 ft. from the front. Not!

Nice thought, just a bit... ...intimidating.

Dixie, this may be obvious, but you probably have clovers on your place now that you can collect seed from this fall. And just before you plant the seeds, get a few shovels full of the dirt where the clover is growing, and cover the seeds with it, then mix it into the soil. It's already got the bacteria you'll need for that clover to fix nitrogen

That would be great if my clovers had dried flowerheads now. The small bit of white Dutch I've got flowered way back in May, the red (crimson?) flowered back in early March, and I've not seen the others flower at all.

I may just get a little of the dirt from those areas and use it when I reseed my fall clover. Or I may just pony up and buy innoculant when I get my new seed.

Clovers are proving tricky for me to establish here. Most of them seem to prefer fall/winter seeding, and have early bloom times, especially compared to the rest of the country. I guess I should try to save that seed in June? And does that mean we have a sort of heat dormancy that goes on here?

Trying to figure what works best here is a whole 'nother ball of wax. It is nothing like where I grew up! I've gardened pretty much all my life (not all of it voluntarily), and trying here makes me feel like a complete and utter neophyte.

Thanks anyway, Sweetpea. Good thought, I've just got no idea how I'd implement it down here.