Re: How do you fill your beds?

**"* C* <d*@chilitech.net>**

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <clfornari@mail.com>

> I usually tell people to put them money into compost and composted manure, 
> not the "loom".

Around here (Pennsylvania) it's "topsoil" with the better stuff coming from 
river flood plains. But I have never understood the standard practice of 
spreading an inch of "topsoil" to start a lawn. Better to spread an inch of 
organic matter and till it into the native soil. If the soil is so bad that 
an inch of organic matter won't help it much, then neither will an inch of 
topsoil.

A couple of decades ago there was a supply problem with peat moss, the 
traditional soil amendment, and rather than pay the skyrocketing price I 
switched to the bagged pine bark mulch. I've never gone back. My raised beds 
are mostly native soil and pine bark mulch. I like to demonstrate for 
visitors by putting the tip of a trowel in the soil and then with one finger 
push it all the way in to the tip of the handle. OK, I make sure the area 
has been freshly spaded before they arrive, but it is still pretty 
impressive.

Compost is great, and I use as much as I can make, a couple of yards a year, 
but for bulk I have found nothing to beat pine bark mulch. I also use it in 
my potting soil.

D 

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