On 8/29/2016 11:52 PM, songbird wrote:
George Shirley wrote:
songbird wrote:
George Shirley wrote:
...
In addition to the vegetable beds we have a fig, a kumquat, and a pear
tree, all producing well after four years of growth. Do need to replace
the growing medium in the raised beds though. That means a tarp to hold
the new medium and toss it several times to get it all mixed properly. I
think we might be getting a bit to old for that too. Might have to call
in the 200 + lbs grandsons to do the tossing.

replace? that sounds like a project for sure.
why not amend on top and let the worms, gravity
and rains do the work for you instead? might be
worth a trial...

Tried that, the compost part of the "soil" just eventually disappears.
This is the Square Foot Garden mix, peat moss, vermiculite, compost.

you must also be fertilizing?
I don't, but wife loves Miracle Grow.

and yeah, hard to keep organic matter in the
soils in warmer areas. some clay can slow the
rate of loss down.
Our "native" dirt here is two inches of sand over five feet of Houston
gumbo clay, put in at build to raise the houses above the minimum flood
zone, saves on $$$ but is very bad for gardening, hence the raised beds.

however, what i meant was that if the compost is
disappearing then add that on top and it will get
mixed in eventually as you plant. especially with
that shallow of a bed. i guess i'm lazy that ways.
think plants and worms can figure it out well
enough without me messing it up.

are the beds isolated from the subsoil clay you
have in place? like by a weed barrier fabric or
sheet plastic?
Yup, but the barrier fabric is pretty much gone by now, has been in
place since early 2013 and was intended to rot away eventually.


It's easier for the two of us old geezers to shovel the mix out on the
tarp and then shake it back and forth to mix it totally. The beds are
only six inches deep by four feet wide by eight feet long, the big one
is a double. We also put in kitchen vegetable scraps occasionally,
hoping to pull some worms into the mix. We finally, after three years
are seeing some earthworms in the beds. Took their own sweet time. I
think it's because we have been potholing a good bit of stuff from the
compost bucket rather than put it into the composter. We will continue
with that one.

i hope they will continue to live there. it's
a good sign when the soil can support a diverse
community of critters.


songbird

Yup, we both grew up on small farms, almost always had composting in
place, plus we had large critters for several years and they dropped
enough good stuff on the land that it became very rich. Horses, mules,
cows, goats, etc. Improved grass lands, eaten by large critters then
given back to the earth. In Louisiana we had access to friends who had
large critters and we always had a pickup truck. Go clean out a rain
shed that had two feet of excrement that was aged from two to five
years, take an axe, cut out large chunks, use the hay fork to toss into
truck, repeat many times. Take it home, put the stuff through the wood
chipper and blow it into the garden, Use the tiller to turn it under,
water, plant seeds, jump back as they grow. I miss those days, about the
only big critter poop you can get here is Black Cow in bags and that is
from huge feed lots and no telling what was going through the critters
and into the bags.