"simy1" wrote in message
om...
"Ray Drouillard" wrote in message
...
We are planting a garden on the land that we just bought. The soil
is a
really sandy loam where we are putting the garden (it's a whole lot
more
sandy than loam on most of the rest of the property).

We need some heavy mulch to make this work.

We have five or six acres of planted red pine forest.

If we rake up a bunch of needles and use them to mulch the garden,
will
that cause any problems?



Ray

Seeds will not germinate. Pine needles contain a chemical that
prevents germination. The chemical breaks down in approximately one
year. You will be all right as long as you plant established seedlings
through the mulch. The one thing that you can not do is seed a bed,
and then cover the seeds with a thin layer of composted needles -
nothing will come up (trust me, I have done it). Potatoes will come up
if they have already sprouted. I don't know about garlic or onions but
I think they will sprout (I have lots of bulbs under a spruce and they
are the only green stuff under there until grass comes up in august).
the other thing you will need to do is mix some ash from the stove
into those needles (they are acid). They are otherwise fairly "green"
and they should give the soil some fertility.

I am in a very similar situation to yours - one of my gardens is sandy
loam and the other is the Sahara. Heavy mulch, several inches of
manure, and plant seedlings through the mulch is the way to go. Pine
needles are a fine mulch in many respects (they don't mat, they are
relatively fertile, they break down within the year), you just have to
learn to use them. In three years, if the beds have received two
applications of manure and maybe 8 total inches of organic matter, you
should be able to ease up both with manure and with the needles (don't
need to apply every season). You will also have to plan ahead if you
plan to seed (most root vegetables and several greens are best direct
seeded). If you do apply a heavy layer of needles, it will probably
take two years for the beds to be ready for seeds. so maybe you use
needles one year, cardboard or newspaper the next (this year my
cardboard, applied in april, is already half gone), and then you seed.

One last advice: your soil is almost certainly acid and will be more
acid still with needles. If you start seeing a pattern where garlic
does better than onions, or potatoes do well but beets or chard don't,
add much more wood ash or lime. Just to give you an idea, in a 30X4
bed, you have approximately 10 tons of dirt. If the pH is 5.4, it will
take approximately 2 pounds of ash to take it to 6.4, but 20 pounds of
ash are needed to take it to 6.65.


Thanks!

I think I'll dig out the pH tester and give it a whirl. Meanwhile, it
looks like pine needles will be a great way to keep weeds from
sprouting.

Now, I need to find a good source of manure. Getting the poop won't be
as big a problem as getting it here. Of course, once the chickens get
bigger, the used litter will certainly do wonders for the garden.

We love our new piece of land, but we have lots of work to do. I'm
thinking of choosing a few areas and putting massive amounts of manure
and mulch on them so we can use those plots in a couple years. If I can
get a big enough truck or trailer, I'll try covering a large piece of
ground with about a foot of mulch, covered by a foot of dairy doo.


Ray