On Thu, 5 May 2011 10:42:44 +0000, mudcow007
wrote:


afternoon all, recently purchased our first house and have really only
been concentrating on the house but the time has finally come when i'm
allowed (my girlfriend is the boss!!) to get stuck into the garden.

the garden itself is not that big, but its quite steep (probably a
gradual difference of 4ft from the top of the garden to the bottom). i
have removed over 15 tonne of concrete that the previous owners had laid
down. this has caused the ground to be quite "undulating"

im currently in the process of wheelbarrowing 19 tonne of soil that was
kindly given to me by a neighbor (who was digging a swimming pool) so im
trying to get the garden to sort of level. i understand that it will
never be flat but i don't mind.

You don't want flat, you want natural drainage. When laying this soil
keep in mind where the water is going to run during heavy rain, don't
build any ponds or trences that don't run anywhere.


the soil that i was given seems to be sub soil. so far i haven't found
one worm (that's a bad sign im guessing!!) whilst digging in it. i have
been in touch with local horse riding stables who said that i can have
as much manure as i want (which was nice of them) so im going to put
loads of rotten manure in hoping that it will improve the quality of the
soil


Excellent! What you will get will be horse bedding, that is straw
which has manure and urine mixed into it which is all good. If it is
fresh spread it out and water it. Wait a couple of weeks and kill all
the seedlings that come up, these will be from seeds in the horse feed
and will depend on the horse's diet. Then turn it in. You can also
compost it which will kill the seeds but this will involve more
handling. You can (and should) apply a lot of horse bedding it will
not give fertiliser burn.

Stables will put used bedding in heaps, sometimes they sit there for
months waiting to be removed. Even if it is not the most accessible
take the oldest (most rotted) heap. If you can get it so that the
'nuggets' have all broken down to fibres you will have an excellent
soil amendment.

i have to build a retaining wall/ fence at the bottom of the garden to
stop all the soil i brought in ending in the garden behind us too, looks
like im going to be a busy boy this summer


Use the concrete?

is there anything else i can do to improve the soil quality?

Hard to say without knowing what it is like. At least check the pH if
you don't get a full soil test done.

In the evenings while recovering from your aerobic workout you should
be reading garden design books from the library.

David