Re: Iris beds
From: stickelbg@juno.com (Rebecca A Stickel)
> First I take my hand shovel (10 inch long) and I dig down to
> about 6inch and I loosen the soil and then I hand dig it and move
> it to a pile for sun drying. after I get a good section dug out
> I then take my little dirt strainer (hot dog bun tray) and the
> next day I start shifting the soil to get rocks, roots, etc. out
> of it.
> I fill a 3gal bucket with the shifted soil and when it's full I
> start back filling in the dug out area a hard full at a time.
Dear Dahliaman, (I assume you grow dahlia also!)
Boy are you making me feel guilty! You had dig and SIFT
the dirt in your beds! Weeeellllll, when you get tired where
you are, you could come pay me a visit. We've got so many
rocks in our yard that if I sifted them all out I'd probably have
the start of Mt. McKinley!!!! My izs have to be tough to survive
here!
Seriously though, it sounds like you've got quite a show
planned for spring. I'd love to see a picture, but I can't get
them through juno email, I'd have to get it snail mail.
I also have a question about the day I read someone puts
manure in their beds. I read somewhere that you weren't
suppose to use manure with TB because it causes disease
and rot in some cases. Any advise? Also, because of the
amount of clay in our soil, I mixed peat moss with it in the
last (only iris) bed that we made. i may have put too much
in because now that we've hit the height of drought season,
the leaf tops are yellowing/browning. I can't keep it watered.
Should I leave it or make additional soil adjustments?
By the way, do your cats just stay indoors? I have trouble
keeping the neighbors cats (mine stay indoors) out of my
freshly dug/mulched iris beds, any suggestions?
Becky Stickel
zone 5, London, OH
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