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A Message from Margaret Roach

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Vegetable garden prep

This topic contains 5 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by kurtzinpa 4 years, 4 months ago.

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

Author	Posts
Author	Posts
November 13, 2008 at 10:19 am #17734
BrianG
November 13, 2008 at 10:19 am #17735
BrianG	I had planned to have my first vegetable garden Spring of this year but my wayward gallbladder had other plans. After surgery in March I was in no shape to prepare beds so it had to be postponed. Now that I am able once again I look forward to Spring ’09 but I need some advise on bed preparation. My soil is almost nothing but rocks and roots (the town should be renamed ‘Rocks and Roots’) and the subsoil is clay so double digging and lots of amending is in order. Should I do this now so the beds have the Winter to settle in or can I wait till early Spring? I am amending the soil with lots of sweet peet and composted manure.
November 14, 2008 at 3:32 am #17736
margaret	I used to double-dig, but do so no longer; just too daunting, really, and I have come up with other methods to work from the top down. I think your soil sounds like it needs more than the cardboard method in the link below, but how about this: What if you roughly prep now, so that winter can do some of the work for you? With each heave and thaw cycle of the coming winter, some of the amendments you pile on now will start to work their way in. I’d break the ground (tiller or spade and spading fork) and just leave it opened up, again roughly…not all perfect by any means…and layer on a lot of sweet peat and fork some of it in once. Then forget it till spring, when you can work it again and load in lots more compost. There are some basics in this other Forum thread that would be work browsing through, as well, on mulch and compost and so forth.
November 14, 2008 at 7:02 am #17737
BrianG	No double digging? Hmm, my back and knees are intrigued. That sounds like a perfect compromise. The real trouble here is in the subsoil, just chock full of rocks. If I just work the top soil and then amend with tons of compost etc. it would still give me a nice deep raised bed. Excellent idea! Thank you, my dear.
November 14, 2008 at 2:53 pm #17738
cherzeca	I started a veggie garden this past summer, and I really only scalped the grass and removed the rocks. I used a grub hoe to remove the grass and a kentucky high wheel cultivator to break up the soil a bit and uncover the rocks. More than this you don’t really have to do. Composting is a great idea to do anytime. My compost wasn’t ready to spread last spring, and only my root veggies suffered. More important is to make sure that you have full sun for the full day, or as much as possible. Try it out simple and easy for the first season and start from there. Too much of "book learning" about gardening is beside the point. What you really should do is "just do it", and analyze what worked and what didn’t, and go on from there.
December 28, 2008 at 5:11 am #17739
kurtzinpa	I heard about a raised bed called a Lasagna Garden this spring. Not much more than sheet composting, but was ready in about 6-weeks. NO DIGGING!!! A thick layer of wet newspapers, like 3 or 4 inches, and then layers of compostable organics. Soak it well and cover with a tarp. There are some notes and photos on my blog at http://www.compostcritter.com. The big one was build right on top of the grass on very rocky/clay soil… plants did great first season, and NO weeds and no grass coming through. ( one was over an excavation project for my septic (ugh). For the winter I layered them again and am letting them go. Will soak and cover for a few weeks to let them cook again. An trying to see if I can capture any winter solar heat with trashbags of sand on some of the beds. Jeff

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