Fixing a new garden spot

[muddstopper]

I lost my old veggi garden spot due to filling in to level out the lot. I did remove the old soil to put back into a new spot, but the wife leveled it out and made a large flower bed, so I have to start from scratch. I have my opinons on this project but thought I would get everybody elses.

The proposed site is about 2000sqft. The soil is all rock and subsoil that came from the bottom of a 100ft deep cut for a new highway. It probably wont see much use this year as I tilled up a small spot in the backyard for a few "mater" plants. So lets draw up a plan for next years veggies. I have already removed most of the bigger rocks (down to 2in dia) to the point I can run my 6ft tiller thru the soil, but there is no organic matter. I still have a bunch of smaller rocks to remove:cry: Lets hear what you would do to make this a productive food produceing site and then I will tell you mine.

[Smallaxe]

You are waiting a year - so a lot of woodchips tilled in with grass clippings, raw manure and don't forget the charcoal. Lots of water all summer long and till in the new weeds every so often.

[ICT Bill]

Green manures are something, long term, that will work. Plant some annual rye in the fall that can be tilled in next spring.

You want humus, old humus. Stuff that has gone through all of the breakdown processes and is stable. I am trying some char trials in pots and flat with different type of plants, so far it has stunted the growth and in some cases killed the seedling. I am trying to figure out why

If I were you I would try find a 10 year old leaf pile somewhere. A couple of us in our area know of sites where landscapers had been for some time and would fill small valleys with all of the debris from landscaping. Great stuff

Is it mostly clay? If you have a buddy with a rock hound that would be excellent

[treegal1]

yeah man, nice garden size. compost, char, rock dust, some lake or sea weeds, river sludge, manure( rabbit horse or some vegan swine) old and new leaf mater, some hay or alfalfa, WORMS!!!!!!!!!, wood chips, mayhab some small amount of sulfur, veg waste from another fruit market.

how about a soil test,or do you have a handle on that?

[Organic a go go]

In my off-the-grid homestead fantasy I would fence that area in and then
put a hog on it for a couple of weeks to root and manure. Plant next spring.

[Daner]

yeah man, nice garden size. compost, char, rock dust, some lake or sea weeds, river sludge, manure( rabbit horse or some vegan swine) old and new leaf mater, some hay or alfalfa, WORMS!!!!!!!!!, wood chips, mayhab some small amount of sulfur, veg waste from another fruit market.

how about a soil test,or do you have a handle on that?

Treegal... that Is one nice mixture...the tomato's will grow like crazy...and well worth the effort...I can hear the Microbes chirping from here:)

[treegal1]

that's just the base. then you can get real creative. molasses, blood meal, oyster shells, meal worm casts, bone char..... starting to ramble.

we go for a base compost and then test to get to the perfect soil.

I hate tomatoes, and grew 12 bushel's in the first part of the year. the summer crop is shade grow-en, and should be smaller,then we get our Xmas crop. we sell almost all we grow. they are like weeds in my yard.

[ICT Bill]

TG, Nobody HATES tomatoes, come on. They rank right up there as one of my favorite fruits, especially when I go to the garden with a salt shaker and pick a nice big ripe tomato, and.............AAAHHHH, slurp, drip, shake shake, AAHHH, slurp. Now you got me all excited, I can't wait

We don't get our first tomatoes around here until after the 4th of July, we are in zone 7

[Kiril]

Soil tests?

[The Rookie]

I dont know muddstopper but I am looking forward to how to do it since I have recently tilled up a red gravel driveway and have the same scenario. I have picked all bigger rocks out, tilled and tilled and tilled and tilled. I have also used dawn dishwashing liquid in a 20 gallon hose end sprayer to try to alleviate compaction. I can only get patch corn to grow there. I really enjoy hearing your ways to do things because they always get results.

[treegal1]

ohh please no more soap. its bad for the herd and SLS and ALS are a problem in soils. if the soils that hard rent a machine( bobcat or a excavator and double dig the whole thing. hard soil is less likely to support the herd!!!

mother earth is not fond of being naked, always cover the soil, hay , mulch, clover, leaves.

[jeffinsgf]

Mud, have you considered building raised beds in your available space? Beds allow you total control of the growing medium mix, warm up quicker in the spring, allow tighter plant spacing, and are easier to maintain. The expense of building the beds might not be much more than the cost of extra amendments for the entire area.

[heritage]

I lost my old veggi garden spot due to filling in to level out the lot. I did remove the old soil to put back into a new spot, but the wife leveled it out and made a large flower bed, so I have to start from scratch. I have my opinons on this project but thought I would get everybody elses.

The proposed site is about 2000sqft. The soil is all rock and subsoil that came from the bottom of a 100ft deep cut for a new highway. It probably wont see much use this year as I tilled up a small spot in the backyard for a few "mater" plants. So lets draw up a plan for next years veggies. I have already removed most of the bigger rocks (down to 2in dia) to the point I can run my 6ft tiller thru the soil, but there is no organic matter. I still have a bunch of smaller rocks to remove:cry: Lets hear what you would do to make this a productive food produceing site and then I will tell you mine.

Hugel Method :)

Look it up.

Coarsest materials on bottom (Twigs) and Finest on top (Leaf Compost)

Happy Gardening!!!


Pete

[treegal1]

hugel, or hill gardens tend to run off the very stuff that makes a garden grow. that's the reason behind terraces or raised bed gardens( runoff) raised beds are great if you live in a sky scraper in japan. but if you want a large 2000 sqft garden then there's little excuse for not "fixing" the soil in a larger area. the next part to this is that you really don't want to garden the same spot for a long time. several years of gardening followed by cover or orchards are a better way???? the bunlap people are farmers and use several plots in rotation; cover, food, cava, bananas,cover.

just let my ethnobotany slip out there.oops

[jeffinsgf]

You can grow the crops from 2000 feet of flat garden in about 1000 feet (possibly even less) of raised beds and have more control over what they're growing in and not have to bend over as much to tend. Take the same 2000 square foot plot and put in raised beds with walkways between and you can yield much more.

Crop rotation works the same way in raised beds as it does in flat gardens.

[naughty62]

Old neiborhood gardereners are good source of if information .If you have tractor you can french till .Till up first layer,raketo the sides , till down deeper on second layer,make amendments as you go .another consideration is ,what problems are the neighors having over the seasoon.are there nemotodes thats case root crops to have split growth.do their tomatoes suffer from tobaco mosaic. blossom bottom blight ,can i save rain water with out a hassle.there are natural inocculants for some problems .mulching with grass clipping and a consistant moisture level during the hot season is important. Talk to to old guys down the street with the big gardens .Just a couple considerations.

[Smallaxe]

Raised beds, double digging, and providing "nutriment". Jeavons knew what "nutriment" was but unable to pin it down scientifically in anything I've ever read.
It is essentially that: The whole is greater than the sum total of its parts. Perhaps the soil tests including complete bio assays move us a bit closer to that understanding.

Anyways, the raised beds are moved over the top of the raw organic pathways as they breakdown, so soil is renewed every couple of years and that process brings up a little more subsoil each time.

Raised beds can make for efficient 'square foot' gardening, however I personally prefer growing one huge mater plant than crowding several together. The broccoli becomes crowded at 2 foot spacings, but by then the smaller veggies in between are consumed.

[muddstopper]

Took the grandkids fishing this weekend so havent had time to check in until now.
Lots of good replies. Heres my action plan.
Soil is groundup rock, wouldnt even be considered clay. I have already used a rock bucket to pick out the larger then 2in dia junk. I dug down about one ft doing this. I intent to raise the soil level with admendments so 12 inches should be deep enough. I then used a Harley rake to remove most of the smaller stones, at least down to manageable quantities. I will soil test and apply appropriate amounts of lime and phosphate. My area is notorious for low P, Ca, Mg levels.

My brother raises horses and has already dumped several cart loads of horsepoop mixed with wood shaveing on the site,which I have tilled in. Not sure the tilling in was a good ideal as the area now seems to hold to much moisture.I also have access to several tons of 40yr old cow poop from an old dairy I will be applying to the site. This material is mostly humis now.

Will be planting a crop of buckwheat because of its ability to concentrate Ca as well as red clover because of its ability to raise Boron levels. These will be tilled in as green manures. I Will also be adding mycor fungi (ecto and endo)and using a biostimulant to encourage fungal growth. I have already purchased a micro nutrient package but am waiting on soil test results before applying. I know I need it, just not how much.

More opinions please.

[muddstopper]

I thought i would post a few pic of what the site looked like to start with. The first pic is the soil right beside where the new garden is being built.
the second pic is of some of the smaller rocks. The third pic is what my wife is using the smaller rocks for. The forth and fifth pics are of some of the larger stones and how they are being used.

[muddstopper]

And another pic of what the site looks like now. We have just started incorporateing the manures. Funny thing is the contract I have with the State states their will be no rocks larger than 12in in dia in the top 12 inches of the soil. I broke off 3 ripper shanks off my box scrape pulling the larger rocks out of the ground. I was also promised top soil but havent seen it yet either. Looks like I will be taking them back to court to make them do what they where supposed to do in the first place again.

[Kiril]

That soil is looking pretty good mud. It looks like with some more OM you will be on your way to a productive soil structure.

[naughty62]

I would not get in a great hurry.Three point implements can be had fairly cheap.It would be nice to have a box scrape with rippers (frost hooks),small spring tooth,landscape rake .Start aquiring soil and compost-able materials.Beg ,borrow and steal .I have always liked the look of stone stub walls around a planting plot .maybe a gardening shed and a couple trees .It has good possibilities but ,give your self some time.

[muddstopper]

As you can see in the last pic, I will probably be fighting some rock for a couple of years. Even the original soil below the fill is slate rock. When I first moved here, I took my old D31 Komatsu loader and dug the dirt down two feet and pushed it all in a pile. I would push the pile back and forth with the loader to crush the rock under the tracks. I incorporated 2 tandem axle truck loads of old cow manure and leveled out the site. The first year I planted just Buckwheat that summer, which I tilled in that fall and planted grain rye. The rye was incorporated the next spring. I grew some of the biggest and most abundant amounts of squash and cukes you ever seen the first planting season, but the "Maters" all got blossom end rot and wouldnt ripen. Bellpeppers didnt do any good either. I started adding lime and cured the blossom end rot, which is caused by a calcium deficiency. I would save my brothers horse poop in a pile which I would incorporate into the garden every fall. I used 18/46/0 to build P levels, always broadcast and tilled into the soil The soil went from a red, groundup slate to a dark, almost loamy texture in about three years. Maters bigger than slice bread, onions as big as softballs. Never did get bell peppers worth a hoot, dont know what the soil was missing to cause this. Okra never did real good either. I believe it has to do with K levels, even tho soil test said levels where adequate. Might also have been micro nutrients which I never had tested.

[naughty62]

Mater are a priority for most people (b.L.Ts ) .When it gets hot and moisture levels fluctuate,maters and bells will go into survival mode and sent the calcium to the plant not the fruit .Thats why mulching and consistant watering is important.Thats too bad about the okra ,I know how everybody loves a big bowl of boiled okra L.O.L.

[treegal1]

well now that i have seen it, scratch the rock dust. pretty land, just wish it did not get so cold.lol we are thin skinned here. good luck stating your case to the state, sound as hard as the stone they brought you:waving:

[muddstopper]

well now that i have seen it, scratch the rock dust. pretty land, just wish it did not get so cold.lol we are thin skinned here. good luck stating your case to the state, sound as hard as the stone they brought you:waving:

To cold here in the winter and to hot in the summer where you are at. I wouldnt trade places with you, but have thought about visiting your wormfarm sometime in the future. I think the spot just behind my tractor in the pic would make a great worm poop generation facility.

[ICT Bill]

Mudd, Where have you been dab nab it

Did you get a chance to play with our hydroseed product?
Good, bad, no difference?

[treegal1]

my best Friends are worms, there names are Fernando, we love every one of the 4 million little guys. we joke that we have a bunch of homosexual hermaphrodite gardeners working for us.

its really the opposite we work for them, we are almost at 7 tons per week to feed the lite guys.that's 7945 shovels of compost a month. LOL

[muddstopper]

Hello Bill,
Been busy with a lot of different projects. I havent tried the ICT in my hydroseeding operation, but have been testing some on a few veggie plants. I took some pics yesterday of some squash plants to post. I havent downloaded them yet, probably do that in a few minutes. I aint exactly following the ICT protocol for usage as I have been mixing some of my own design microbe food and using the ICT for the microbes. Nothing scientific or tested, just playing around.

Treegal, I am wondering about purchaseing some redworms from the bait store to add to my garden spot. My thoughts are that since I am incorporating fresh horse poop mixed with wood chips, the worms should do fine. I dont have a clue as to what type redworms the bait store sells, but bait redworms should be better than no worms. What would be the best way to introduce them into the soil, just dig a hole and drop them in?

[muddstopper]

Heres the pics,
This is just a part of my back yard that I tilled up, I'll probably be fighting grass trying to grow back all season. No fertilizer has been applied since back in March. The area has seen fert and lime apps twice a year for the last couple of years. Plants where planted as seed.

First pic is squash plants without any organic material added.
Second pic is plants with ICT product and microbe food, as well as a little humate. I dont know if you can tell by the pics, but these plants are diffenetly bigger, but the plants without the ICT or other additives actually cameup faster.
Third pic is the Microbe food. I would tell you whats in it, but then I would have to kill you. It is all organic and a mixture of products that can be bought at most any feed store. I am sure it has a NPK ratio, but I havent had it tested to determine what it is. It is high protein and you can probably tell it contains some corn. The rest is secret.

[treegal1]

yeah man, RED WORM ON, out doors in fine, make a compost pile and let them go to WORK.just let them go and keep where you want them to stay wet and full of food(compost)and (young compost)thats all they want.