On Sun, 06 Jul 2003 20:42:52 GMT, "Bob Petruska"
wrote:



I take pictures of my garden and the last good graden was 1985 when I
installed the raised beds and used a sterilized soil of 25% peat, sand,
vermiculite, top soil.....things grew gigantic that year! It's been
downhill since then when the bacteria and fungus take over.


I've done well with the mushroom soil - but this is only my
3rd season living here, so I don't have long experience with
it.

Contrary to what several people have said about letting it
age, I added mushroom soil directly to my raised beds this
spring. I was worried about doing this, and didn't really
want to but - because neither my husband nor myself is
capable of digging in our heavy clay (health problems)- I
had very little choice in the matter.

It was either fill the raised beds with mushroom soil or
don't plant them at all. (This was the first year we've
used raised beds.) Some of the raised beds got about 1/2
mushroom soil, and some got 100% mushroom soil.

So far everything is doing very well indeed - this is
squash, zucchini, chard, peppers, tomatoes, lettuces,
various Asian greens, various herbs, and cucumbers. (I
never got the pole beans planted - I hurt my back and
haven't been able to work in the garden for the last month.)

The only problem we're having is that the mushroom soil
drains fast, and needs daily watering in the heat we've been
having for the last two weeks. This may partly be because
we're using tires also - they're small compared to most
raised beds, and have black solar-heat-collecting sides.

When we're finished setting up the tires (raised beds) and
filling them (we're only about 60% done now), then we'll buy
hoses with emitters, and put one emitter in each tire. Then
watering will just involve turning on the tap. That will be
good. Meanwhile, my husband is going out to water with the
hose daily - a nuisance, to say the least.

I do know that - in various locations - I've always
concentrated (above all else) on getting organic matter into
the soil, and I've always had very good results. So I think
it works.

Pat