As I mentioned earlier, we’ve started our own little garden in our backyard. We live in wine country, so it was relatively easy to find some once-used wine barrels that are discarded by wineries every year. These wine barrels, cut in half and filled with plants of all kinds, are a common sight in our neighborhood. We decided to use these containers for our backyard garden.

Of course, opting to use containers for a garden meant finding good soil to fill them with. After calling several nurseries and landscaping supply yards, we realized that soil isn’t cheap. Not even close. One nursery was selling its standard-sized bags of potting soil for twelve dollars. Really, guys? Twelve bucks for a bag of dirt? That soil had better grow chocolate and rainbows if I’m going to drop that kind of dough.

So we headed over to Whole Foods, where, thankfully, they had bags of potting soil and compost stacked high on the sidewalk outside the store. These bags were the exact same size as the twelve dollar bags of soil, and guess what they cost? $1.99. Two bucks. Plus, the compost they sell is made from food scraps that are gathered from their stores, taken to a composting facility, and then turned into nitrogen-rich compost. Besides being a brilliant way to put some of their waste to good use, Whole Foods’ compost is of good quality. The bags are warm, a sign of the bacterial activity inside, which is what you want in compost. The company’s soil is also nice, it smells woodsy and slightly sweet. And for two dollars each, these bags of soil and compost are a great buy.

I’ll be taking photos of our little garden as it grows, with the intention of making a visual timeline resembling stop-motion filming, which I’ll eventually post here. In the mean time, go get yourself some of the well-valued soil and compost at a Whole Foods near you, and get your garden on.