New Garden Location (Thanks for the advice)


I just wanted to thank everybody for there response to the question about my new garden location. I can't take my existing soil with me, though I wish I could and there is NO top soil to speak of. While visiting the site on Saturday, I was able to see a good portion of the soil. The builder is putting in a retaining wall behind the house and they had just dug the trench for it. So I was able to see what my soil looked like to about 10 feet down. It's mostly a clay like soil all the way down so I will have a lot of work ahead of me. My plans are to start with one side of the garden and work towards the other. There is about 200 sqft which has to be dealt with so I will be spending most of the summer turning the compost bin and looking for anything I can put into it.
As far as the no till method, I have read various books which contradict themselves on this subject. 'How to Grow More Vegetables...' says to use the double dig method and dig down 24" and to repeat this every year. 'Square Foot Gardening' says to double dig (12" deep) once and then never walk on the soil again. And a third book 'The Four Season Harvest' encourages lifting the soil with a fork or special tool. This helps to loosen the soil. But ALL of them say to add compost to the top of the soil. In the past I use the 'Square Foot Gardening' book as a guide and I dub down 12"-20" and then added compost. This worked really well with my current location. I'd be interested to hear what others have done as far as double digging/no till/ect.
 
Thanks for all the help.
 
Kurt McCullum
 
------------------------------------
The Gardener's Notepad
http://members.aol.com/gnotepad
 


Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index