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Hello everyone, I'm new here and fairly new to gardening. I have had a small garden before, but did minimal work to it. I bought a house and it has 6 raised beds. Here is the first question.
The soil is pretty bad, mostly clay, and was difficult to break up. I don't have any compost ready, so I was going to buy some organic compost to mix into the soil. What other amendments should I add to get the best out of my soil.
Question 2. I started my seeds indoors with a self watering germinator, I give them 16 hours of light a day from a 23 watt cfl bulb. My spinach, tomatoe and onions were doing really well until a few days ago when I took notice the leaves look like they are starting to die. Why could be thr issue?
Question 1
You can also add sand to your clay like soil. Since you have so many beds, you might want to consider buying bulk as it would be cheaper. Check out local garden and landscape centers. Or you can buy in 50lb bags for about $4 each at Lowes or Hom Depot. If you do have local garden centers they may even have compost in bulk as well.
Question 2
It comes to mind there may be too much water. Spinach especailly likes it very well drained. Is it all the plants or just one type?
Thank you very much for the reply, how much sand would I need to add to the clay? I know that I need course sand, but i'm curious to how many 50lbs bags I would need.
Would the quickrete all purpose sand work?
The spinach are the worst looking ones out of the bunch, they seem to be dying, 1 or 2 of the tomatoes have a dying leaf here and there, and the onion looks the best out of it. Should I take the tray out of the self water unit and let it dry out a bit? Some of my spinach seeds didn't even sprout, I planted more.
EDIT: Forgot to mention this as well, if I used the sand to help amend my soil how much compost should I add then. I was thinking of getting green mountain organic compost. I was thinking of spreading a 20Qt bag of it on each bed and then tilling it into the soil.
Not seeing just how much clay is there I would say about 2 parts clay to one part sand. It might not need that much. What ws growing there before? If it is really hard packed you could even add more.
Yes the quickcrete sand as long as there is no portland in it will work ok.
If you are using both sand and compost I would do a test bucket> Start with one part clay 1 part compost and 1 part sand. Then once it is mixed well use a cylinder type container ( PVC pipe about 4" would work good, it doesn't have to be more than 3-4 inches deep) Place it on a surface that you don't mind getting wet and or dirty. Fill the cylinder with you fresh mixed soil. Take about 6 oz of water and pour into the cylinder. The ieda is to see how fast it drains. How mush water is hled. The you can gage if you have too much sand or not.
Crabbergirl is pointing you in the right direction if you want to work down.
If you have access to a pickup or a trailer compost may be really inexpensive to obtain. Almost all cities now have yard waste pickup and that gets taken to be composted down. Around here (northern IL) it is about $20 for a heaping pickup load and they'll load it for you. Another user on this forum got compost for something like $22 a ton in California.
Have you ever heard of straw bale gardening? Place the bale on top of the ground water it in, cover the top with a few inches of compost, and grow in the bale for the season. There is a little more to it but you can search for it. I did this to start my largest raised bed. After the season the bale will be mostly composted down Just turn the soil/bale/compost a little and let it sit for the winter.
Looking longer term now...
Do you have piles of leafs in the fall? I shred mine with my lawn mower and mix them into my raised beds. This has resulted in some great soil. At this point I even grab some bags of leafs from my neighbors in the fall.
Have you ever heard of lasagna gardening? This is where you compost directly in the garden bed and don't bother with a dedicated compost pile.
I have never heard of straw bale gardening but I may look into it. I have access to a big pickup truck, even a dump truck, but i'm not sure where to get compost around here, or the prices.
I think i'm going to just try to ammend the soil I have, its honestly not to bad, I tilled it all by hand, it was just a little hard at first, but once I got it moving it broke loose pretty easily.
I have lots of leaves around here, and I can get even more from my grandma and my mom if needed, and I have heard of lasagna composting, and I plan on doing that at the end of the season for next year. I just moved into my house at the end of last november, so I didn't have time to do anything.
I came home today and my spinach looks really bad, and so does my onion. My tomatoes still look okay, and my sweet peppers sprouted along with my cucumbers.
I was also thinking, since I have raised beds, why not just dig out all the clay and buy some good topsoil/compost mix and start off with a good base rather than trying to fix what I have?
Welcome to our forum Andrew!
Don't count out your clay soil!
A good test to check for draining ability of your soil is to dig an 8"x 8" hole and fill it with water. Let it drain, then fill it again. If the water just sits there and slowly drains then you have a problem. If it drains away quickly then you have no problem.
With any soil the best thing to do is add organic matter, such as well aged manure, compost, and peat moss!
One thing I found is that you can never add enough organic matter! It adds nutrients and helps to create a good structure to the soil, which encourages good organisms, as well as fungi and bacteria that plants need to grow and produce well!
I was thinking of digging out all the clay and starting from scratch but I looked at prices, and that would be really pricey.
What I plan on doing is getting some quickrete all purpose sand and compost and do what crab said. Once I figure out the right combination, I will do the whole raised bed.
Also I came home last night and my onion was looking really bad, I took the trays out of the self waterer for today, and i'll see what happens.
I think you might see an improvement after removing from the water, as long as the plants are not too far gone.
Leaves are great for amending. What type of leaves? Oak have a lot of acid and too many can change the Ph of your soil. Grass clippings are also great. I love to use them in amendments.
I hope they pull through, but if not, i can always plant more.
I'm not sure what type of leaves they are, I don't think they are oak, I also have a lot of pine needles. My family owns a business, with a good bit of yard so we have a bigger lawnmower with a big grass clipping collector, so I plan on taking a lot of it to make compost and to put right into my soil along with leaves at the end of the season.
You said about testing 1 part sand, 1 part compost, 1 part clay soil in a 4 inch pipe. My question is how much should it drain in a certain amount of time, I'm not really sure of how much its supposed to drain, so I can't really gauge it to well. Also once I figure out the right ratio, how would I scale that up to my raised beds?
In one season you can really do a lot of correction using the leaves and grass. ( no formula needed) You will be able to see the changes.
When you add about 6oz water to the cylinder of soil, you want to see a little water coming through, maybe about 1/2 but not all 6 oz. You want the soil to absorb some of the water and retain it for at least a day, but not be soggy. A little water draining out is OK but you want to see that it is holding enough to keep plants watered. It is a visual as well as a feel. You know that too much water is as bad as not enough, you want your soil to hold moisture but not water. In a raised planted you will not have as hard a time with water retention as you would directly in the ground.
Scaling your amendment is going to be a math calculation. OK let's see if the rusty math brain can do this. Figure the cubic feet of you planter. Then divide your calculated amount(Cubic feet of planter ) by ( the ratio of amendments to clay). In other words if your planter is 6 Cubic feet, then you will divide it by 3 if you used 1 part of each of the 3 soil types. so you would add 2 cubic feet of sand and 2 cubic feet of compost. With this said you might have to remove some(about 2 cubic feet) of the current material to add the new amendments, you would just adjust your calculation accordingly.
I have read this twice but if someone (Randy or Ron) sees a mistake in the formula please correct it. My math skills are rusted!
I think i'm going to need to look into another source of sand then.
I can get 2 tons of compost for about 40 bucks, which based off your formula should be enough for my needs, but the sand is going to be an issue. I'm going to have to look into a bulk buy of sand, because I would need a lot of bags of sand from home depot
Or do you think I should just try my luck with what I have, and then add leaves and such into the mix at the end of the season to make it better for next year.
It can be over thunk and costly. The beauthy of amendments is you often do not need to spend any money. You can amend this without sand it will just take longer. Sand is an instant fix where as fresh organic matter takes time. Without really seeing how much clay ( but you did say it wasn't as bad as you thought) it is hard to say how quick leaves and grass would work. If , since you have worked the soil, you think you could skip the sand , then I would. You can actually begin working brown matter and aged compost in right now and still plant. Anything green is holding heat and could cook your seeds and tender plants. So you may want to hold off on green if you intend on planting right now. If I were you I would give this option a go.
If starting a compost is an option, use your grass for composting. It will not take to long to cook and cool so that you can use it as a side dressing or work into the soil. I use grass mulch between my rows even when green. You just have to keep it back away from the actual plants or you can cook them. This helps build the soil and replace what the plants are using naturally. At the begining of the next season I turn it under and start again. I have gone from straight sand to beautiful loam in one season by just constantly turning in organic matter.
What I would do , would be to sacrifce one planter an begin turning in green and brown matter right now. Keep it watered as if you were growing something. Depending on conditions you could plant in a couple weeks in your new amended soil. Less green more brown means a quicker plant time. Think of it as a project to see exactly what your soil needs, how much it needs, and how long it is going to take. The remaining planters start with brown matter and plant now.
I like that plan, they did have stuff growing in it before a few flowers, hot peppers and bell peppers I know for sure.
I have a composter and want to start using it here soon, my mom actually gave it to me, she didn't want it anymore.
I don't think my soil is all to bad, it was pretty easy to turn by hand with a hand tiller, but its still clay, I think i'll take some and see how much water flows through it.
I will sacrifice one of my beds and I have plenty of leaves right now I can't put in,and a quick mow of the grass will provide me with some greens
I was planning on raking, or bagging all my grass clippings and either composting it, or using it as mulch on my beds, thanks for the info about keeping it far enough away from my plants.
At the end of the season I am going to turn in a bunch of organic matter, what do you think about horse manure, my sister has two horses and a abundance of manure.
EDIT: I forgot to mention I won't be planting for atleast another 5 weeks, thats when the last frost is.
I have a whole bunch of leaves, and I put some in my raised bed, but its really hard to till them under the dirt with the hand tiller I have, any suggestions?
This is what I did when I built my beds, I decided to avoid the soil I removed as it had grass etc in it, so I felt I would have to deal with reoccurring weeds etc and so I just opted to replace it. I went the expensive route the first time using horse manure (1 year+ old), sand (for it's crushed mineral properties), and peat moss/coco coir, I had excellent returns with this mixture. I didn't use bloodmeal, or anything like that, but I did use rock dust when planting, and I made sure it had plenty per plant. If you saw my Cauliflower I grew (11.5 lbs) it was with the soil I mentioned. Even after saying that I wouldn't go that route as the price was over the top and would opt to just go straight compost (and add rock dust per plant) I personally follow a guy on youtube and like him I don't add anything besides compost and rock dust now. So maybe the rock dust assists with drainage but I haven't had any issues with my current beds full of only compost have drainage issues. It rained like crazy here the last few days and my beds never had puddles on them. I buy compost at $22 a ton, just so you know the place I get it told me 1 yard is roughly 1300lbs in compost (FYI). I will from now on only enrich my soil with compost + rock dust, and I use mycorrhiza for it's beneficial bacteria (I want to make sure my soil is healthy and teaming with beneficial bacteria), and I usually use between a teaspoon and tablespoon when I transplant or plant seeds in my soil (this stuff will help your plants build amazing roots quickly). Now I like you will be composting for myself next season (grass clippings and... maybe bat guano), but if one follows square foot gardening, I believe the produce would cover the costs in a year probably. I just follow the concept of wanting to produce the highest quality food for myself. But I will admit I've already purchased 3 tons of compost within the last 6 months to fill up and top off my current beds.
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