A soil test is going to tell you that you have sand with no nutrients. Let's get some grass growing first. St Augustine loves a little shade. Bermuda, the other popular grass in FL, will not grow in any shade. For full sun the best one to get is the Floratam variety. There are a couple tricks to growing St Augustine. First is to mow it at the mower's highest setting. Let it get up to 5 or 6 inches tall before mowing it back down to 4. Second, it absolutely must have deep water every so often. When temps are 90 or above, you will have to water a full inch every 5-7 days in full sun. This time of year you might get away with watering every 3-4 weeks (always a full inch as measured by cat food or tuna cans). Forget about worms. They might come later or might not. The best thing to improve your sand is to use organic fertilizer. If you really have fine, white, sugar sand, then any amount of compost you can afford, up to 1 cubic yard per 1,000 square feet, would be helpful. My favorite organic fertilizer is alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow). Apply at 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet as often as you want to or can afford. Grain type organic fertilizers take 3 full weeks to see any improvement. They are called "slow release" but that's sort of a misnomer. They release fast but not to the plants. The fertilizer feeds the soil microbes and they feed the plants. Being a biological process it takes time. Over time your white sand will appear almost black. Don't be fooled into thinking your sand is changing. What's happening is the microbes and grass are leaving behind organic matter that will help to hold moisture and provide other benefits to your soil. As for the snails, find some cheap ammonium sulfate fertilizer and scatter that around. Ammonium sulfate looks like rock salt and has exactly the same effect on snails and slugs. They bubble up and die. We had a big infestation back in the 90s. I used that stuff (before I became organic) and we haven't seen a snail since. Incredible!!

hilltop, that's funny, I have no recollection of where the cabinet came from -- I think it was about 7 years ago -- but it MUST have been from that place, because this looks awfully familiar! It was installed during a big construction project, by the contractor, so I can't comment on the ease of installation, but it seems to be pretty good quality. I did have extra shelves made at a local glass place...and will have to have another made, because when I put the shelves back in this morning, I dropped one and it chipped in a few places! Here is a link that might be useful: inwall cabinets

It's been 3 years since the renovation (thanks again GW members for all the great advice!). Last night was the second Thanksgiving dinner I've cooked in the kitchen. Everything from appliances to lighting to layout functioned exactly as I wanted (thanks to 2 years of planning before demo). And in the end, I didn't think about the kitchen, just enjoyed it...kind of like wearing a favorite pair of jeans. It's turned into a comfortable and warm space, one I can share with friends and family at each holiday.

Hi all !!! Ok I have a pix of my wick system. As you can see it is pretty simplistic. This is one of the plants that is recovering from the furnace out this winter. I think it looks pretty good considering. I also use a 16 oz cottage cheese container & lid. I cut out a circle so the pot sits about 1/2 inch down into it. For sturdiness. I use a lot of variations depending on what materials I have on hand. Also here are the two new violets I bought at Walmart. Funny thing about that. There hasn't been a violet in Walmart for I don't know how long. Didn't I say that in a previous post????? And I was in there several times before this Easter and all I could get was the Easter cactus and a clearance pot of Hyacinth. So when I posted I had to groc shop on Friday,,,the first places I stopped was Walmart and Lowes. Walmart had 4 violets!!!! A week AFTER Easter !!!! Glory Be !!!!!I bought 2 of them. They are both Optimara's, labels are stuck on both orange pots. Yes,,,,I know they are Optimara NOIDs. That's ok with me I think they are beautiful. And,,,the violets at Walmart cost MORE than the violets at Lowes or Meijer. Then I went to Lowe's. Remember I said they hadn't had violets for a very long time? Nothing since November. Well, they got in about 10. AND they also had 6 of them in the six inch pots! Nothing I didn't already have so I left with nothing. Now I go to Meijer (groc shop) but first I went all the way over to the other side of the store to see the violets and they still had the same ones they had before Easter. So I got nothing. Well,,,That is my latest violet saga! Been keeping track of the round robin and I can't wait to hear about all of the different violets every one is getting. How nice! Rosie