Need Advice on Soil Mix for New Raised Beds

[gtaus]

I hope everyone is keeping some kind of record about this year's garden compared to previous years'. I'd love to compare notes long about September!

Well, gardeners LOVE to talk about their gardens, so I think we'll all have something to say!

Well, I revel in my few garden successes, but usually mark down all my failures as lessons learned. I hope to have something good to report come September, Thanks for your comments.

 

[Sally PB]

One of my shooting instructors told me this about pistol matches:

"Good matches are strokes, bad matches are lessons."

The same is true with gardening.

 

[gtaus]

I wouldn't do 100% compost, but if you can get that $50 mound of topsoil (nice price!), mix it with however much compost you have to be able to fill up the remainder of the beds on top of the hügelkultur, and I think you should be good to go.

Well, I have pretty much done that now. I filled the bottom of my 2 4X4 raised beds with the hügelkultur , leaving about 8 inches to the top left to be filled with a compost/soil mixture. I calculated that I need about 22 cubic feet to finish the top of the beds. A Bobcat scoop is about 11 cubic feet, so if mix an equal amount of compost, that would give me the 22 cubic feet I need. If I buy that nursery top soil, I would be filling up my raised beds for just another $50 out of pocket. That seems to fit into my budget.

Having said that, I will be raking away the mulch between my garden beds to see if I can harvest any soil from my existing garden. I have been dumping wood chips, grass clippings, and leaves between the garden beds for years and just letting it sit. Now might be the time to see if nature has converted that into some good soil.

Either way, I think I'll be able to finish this project this week, weather permitting.

 

[BReeder!]

I like to sift the compost to remove the chunks and have a more uniform texture. Improves seed to soil contact. The chunks go in the bottom of the beds

This makes sense. I start a lot of things indoors and then transplant. The only things directly sowed are potatoes, onions, lettuce, carrots, parsnips, radishes, bunching onions and cilantro (those last two only because I forgot to start them indoors with the other herbs).

 

[BReeder!]

I don't buy soil if I don't have to. I certainly don't have the best soil in our yard, but I've had to regrade parts of the yard, clear old flower beds, and dug out a pond. That left me with a lot of dirt to relocate. Nearly all of it is in our garden beds and raised rows. That said, I've added several yards of homemade compost over the past few years. I also pile on leaves in the Fall.
At the old house, I had beautiful beds. They were smaller as we lived in the city instead of the suburbs (my lot now is at least 3 times the size of the old one), but very productive. I filled those with some logs from a small tree I cut down and then cheap top soil, mushroom compost, and composted steer manure. All of this was the cheapest possible from a big box store. Those beds grew very well for us. Herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers, the best harvest I've ever had of zucchini and yellow squash...
At the end of the day, top soil is top soil. It's dug up, dried out and dead. It should be loose, but even that is typically wrong about it because a little bit of clay always seems to find it's way in. Garden soil is that dead, crappy top soil (I really hate the top soil...) amended with organic matter to give it structure and life (bacteria and fungi).
I say take you dirt from wherever you can get it, and mix it plenty of organic matter. Don't go pure compost (too much of a good thing is a bad thing as already discussed), but put as much compost as you can into your soil and your plants will be happy for it.
As a side note on this ranting though, pay attention to the needs of the plants as the grow and understand what you are growing. Fertilize as necessary with sources of calcium (egg shells, lime, epsom salt, compost*), phosphorous (bone meal, urine, shellfish scraps, some manures, egg shells, compost*), potassium (kelp/seaweed, wood ash, banana peals, compost*), nitrogen (compost, manure, compost/manure tea, urine, coffee grounds, nitrogen fixing plants, etc) and magnesium (compost, epsom salt, lime). Note that all these key elements can come form compost, with the only catch being the compost was made from matter containing the elements to begin with. Kitchen scraps and chicken manure take care of that for us. However, you may still need to give an extra boost to plants as they grow by putting appropriate nutrient sources around them.

Just my overall $.02, take it or leave it.

 

[gtaus]

I don't buy soil if I don't have to. I certainly don't have the best soil in our yard,

Well, just taking a lunch break. I went out to my garden and raked off the top mulch to get down to the soil level. As I have said, I live on a lake and my soil is mainly sand. Anyway, the soil underneath the mulch (wood chips, grass clippings, and leaves) is a dark brown, but certainly not a rich black soil like I am considering to purchase. The decomposed mulch is actually much darker than the garden soil underneath. But if I sifted the decomposed mulch, I don't think there would be much of a difference between that and my chicken run compost.

So I am leaning towards buying a load of black soil and mixing it with my chicken run compost. Given all the things on my list, I just don't know if I want to take the time to dig up soil from the garden, sift it, then mix it with compost to fill the raised beds. Then I would also have to backfill the soil I took out of the garden.

On a more positive note, I found a number of worms in the garden soil I sampled, which is a great sign because years ago, before I started dumping all that organic material as mulch, there were hardly any worms in the sandy soil. So there is progress going on.

 

[BReeder!]

Well, just taking a lunch break. I went out to my garden and raked off the top mulch to get down to the soil level. As I have said, I live on a lake and my soil is mainly sand. Anyway, the soil underneath the mulch (wood chips, grass clippings, and leaves) is a dark brown, but certainly not a rich black soil like I am considering to purchase. The decomposed mulch is actually much darker than the garden soil underneath. But if I sifted the decomposed mulch, I don't think there would be much of a difference between that and my chicken run compost.

So I am leaning towards buying a load of black soil and mixing it with my chicken run compost. Given all the things on my list, I just don't know if I want to take the time to dig up soil from the garden, sift it, then mix it with compost to fill the raised beds. Then I would also have to backfill the soil I took out of the garden.

On a more positive note, I found a number of worms in the garden soil I sampled, which is a great sign because years ago, before I started dumping all that organic material as mulch, there were hardly any worms in the sandy soil. So there is progress going on.

I hear what you are saying... Taking soil that you have to backfill is not ideal. I was able to use soil from areas of my yard that I didn't need to backfill.
Just a thought, I'd add some of that sandy soil to the mix still. Sand is great for drainage. Of course you want to retain moisture still, but during heavy rains you want that excess water to drain. Compost will retain moisture and sand will let it drain. Having both in your soil is helpful in different ways.

 

[vall]

Here's a few more ideas - check hydroponics shops, they always have perlite, if not vermiculite. Pumice would also work as a perlite substitute if you're able to source that. If not, use whatever you can!

 

[gtaus]

Compost will retain moisture and sand will let it drain. Having both in your soil is helpful in different ways.

Makes sense. Thanks.

 

[gtaus]

Here's a few more ideas - check hydroponics shops, they always have perlite, if not vermiculite. Pumice would also work as a perlite substitute if you're able to source that. If not, use whatever you can!

No hydroponics shops in my small town. However, I found that Home Depot sells 2 cubic foot bags of perlite, which may be an option. Depends on how much sand I have in the soil I end up using to mix with my compost.