Improving soil ?

I was reading a few of the articles in the "Article" section of this web site.

I have terrible soil -- clay. You know, the new subdivision soil, with just an inch of top soil

anyhoo -- I read the 2 articles on soil; "Improve your Soil" and "Soil (Don't call it dirt)"

they state to dig down and remove the clay and to add compost...

my question is.... since they are existing beds with plants already planted.... how do i go about removing the clay to add compost?

Can I dig around the plants to improve the beds, or is it best to remove it all?

TIA,

Terese

Just build a lasagna garden around existing plants. Keep all of your lasagna ingredients several inches away from the existing plants so as to avoid injury or burning. That worked great for me.

If you need information on the process, google "lasagna gardening"

Karen

Karen,

thanks -- and yes, i've already read up on Lasagna Gardening... 'cuz i wanted to know what it was (odd name)

I do have some stuff composting in back (I have one of those 'tumblers') so i should have some compost in the spring.

I'll give it a go.

Terese

I tried to do a bit of lasagna-gardening sheet composting last year. What astounded me was how much work it is: mow the existing weeds as short as you can, get the newspaper (I filched mine from recycling bins, as I don't subscribe to any papers), wet the newspaper, put it down, put at least a little something atop it promptly to keep the newspaper from drying out and blowing away, and THEN bring in the stuff to be composted, pile it on, and grade it.

I found the sheer volume of compostable material necessary jaw-dropping for more than small plot or a few raised beds. Soon I emptied my compost bins, reserves of wood chips, and so on. I don't know where to get enough material for my vegetable garden, barring buying a big trailer and making arrangements with the horse farms south of here to haul away stable waste aplenty. I could buy a better chipper/shredder (my old one has a dead engine and I'm not sure if the mechanism is still sound, and I got an electric one on sale for under $100 without much capacity) but that would provide mostly brown matter, wood chips and some leaves in season. I don't want to spend a fortune on sphagnum moss, either. Still, it's a fascinating idea if rather more work than I had expected...

Mark., not sure what to try this year

I found it easier than a regular compost pile or bin. I built the beds over about a week or 2 as time and materials came available. I used newspaper and mostly grass clippings and shredded leaves. I threw in a few coffee grounds, weeds, dead flowers, garden waste, etc, but not very much of that stuff, relying mostly on the grass and leaves. Plus, you never have to turn as with a pile, nor to spread it when it is finished- it's already in place.

Karen

Terese:

For existing bed I would likely just try to top off the beds once a year with a few inches of compost and also add organic mulch as needed. You can also mulch with shredded leaves in the fall. When you dig up perennials to move or divide, throw some compost back in the hole. I would also add that it is tough to obtain really good soil if you are using a lot of synthetic fertilizers and/or chemicals...but maybe that is just my opinion.

- Brent

thanks for all the good advice.

Karen, being in a new subdivision (Old corn fields) we have no leaves... but i do have tons of grass clippings.

Brent -- I really dont use fertilizers. I have miracle gro - but rarely remember to use it.

i'm ready to start on my beds.... now i just have to wait for the weather to warm up. It is only Feb!!

I am too impatient for lasagna gardening and dug up all of my plants in the fall and tilled in lots of compost 5 to 1 in the soil. I then the next day replanted the plants and let them sit dormant over the winter. They took off like banshees the next spring. It took me only 2 days to completly change the poor soil and provide soil that no longer needed irrigation but rarely and here in Montana that is what is needed. Also I don't like the looks of Lasagna and the tendency to bury the crown of the plants in decomposing debris. I prefer to do it in the compost pile. This is the bed the next year.

I did my first lasagna bed in 2005. I was really impressed with how healthy the plants were and it was so much easier than turning the soil by hand (I don't have a tiller). Here is a picture.

- Brent

Looks great Brent as all of your garden is. Where is the Lasagna?

It is a little hard to tell in the picture. I dug up the edge and tossed the grass it into the middle of the pile (in that first picture it looks like I dug up a lot of the sod from the middle, but that is just the dirt from the edge). I added a good 3-4" layer of shredded leaves, grass clippings and misc garden waste. I also tossed in a few purchased bags of compost and some alfalfa pellets. I can get plenty of free shredded wood mulch, so I topped it off with a thick layer of mulch. In person the "Layered and Mulched" picture did look mounded up.

Just the grass alone that was growing there adds quite a bit of organic matter. When I dug around in there toward the end of last year to shift around a few plants, I was impressed with the quality of the soil.

- Brent

Brent,

i've seen the alfalfa pellets mentioned before (but havent read any of it)
what do they do?

I can get plenty of grass clipping, coffee grounds, egg shells and "kitchen waste"
what else should i be adding?

my neighbor said last fall she was thinking about getting manure
She and I could go in on halfs on some compost/manure if that would help.

Alfalfa is recommended as an organic fertilizer. I have been using it off and on to fertilizer my lawn and garden beds. I added it to this bed mostly because I was a little light on the greens. I suggest that you search around for more info on alfalfa.

As far as what to add...it looks like you could use more browns.

My personnel opinion for composting and lasagna gardening is to use what you can easily get. During the winter I have access to lots of shredded leaves from the county, so I try to stock up. During the summer I rescue a few bags of grass clippings from the curb. I have access to shredded wood mulch year round so I use a lot of that in my garden beds. I have obtained coffee grounds from Starbucks on a few occasions, but it is a little more hassle than I like to deal with (though it is a great compost material).

- Brent

thanks Brent.

my son works for starbucks, so i can get the grounds by bucketfuls if i want them. I told him close to Spring to start bringing it home again.

again - we have no leaves... though i have a summer place and this past fall we raked close to 60 bags of pine needles and oak leaves... maybe next year, i'll bring a few bags home. (I know they collect them and give them to a farmer -- bet he composts them all)

I'll do some research on alfalfa and other things to compost.

Thanks for the info.

Terese

tcs: Sounds like you should be off to a good start. As Brent mentioned, you need some browns. Goffee grounds and alfalfa are both greens, as is manure. You can google "compost ingredients" and find lots of suggestions.

If you already know this, I'm sorry. But from your post I thought you might think coffee grounds are a brown. It seems logical, but it's not the case.

Good luck to you and have fun- lasagna's good!

Karen

Karen,

thanks -- I know i have a list somewhere from the "tumbler" i got, of what is considered brown and green.

I thought "kitchen" was "brown" and "yard waste" was considered "green"
and coffee grounds would be green, but manure and alfalfa brown .... are leaves are brown??

now my head is spinning......... LOL

but yes -- i will research it more.

Thanks for the heads up.

Terese

i did just find this, that seems to help me understand

# Green material can be vegetable peelings, egg shells, tea-bags, coffee grounds
# Brown can be woody prunings, plant stems, twigs, egg boxes, crumpled paper, wood shavings

http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/EnvironmentalServices/RubbishRecyclingLitter/compostips.asp

In general, composting "greens" are high-nitrogen materials, and "browns" are low-nitrogen materials.

"Greens" include manure, alfalfa, bonemeal, beans and seedmeals, fish and fish scraps (if you have a varmint-proof composter), vegetable scraps, grass, coffee grounds, and eggshells (the membrane is protein and therefore high nitrogen), hair, nail trimmings (no polish or artificial nails).

"Browns" include plant stems, straw, tree leaves and needles, bark, sawdust, paper, lint from clothes dryer traps, and cardboard.

Vacuum cleaner dust is somewhere in the middle. A lot of household "dust" is actually hair and tiny flecks of shed skin, (both human and animal).

would fireplace ash be considered Brown?

from some of the reading I've done today - i was getting the impression
Green = wet stuff
Brown = dry stuff

never even considered the "nitrogen" aspect of it.

Johnson - thanks for that list.

I have one of these -->

I'd like to correct johnsonjr's statement by just a tad.

Greens are high nitrogen items, browns are high carbon items.

most stuff we compost all have carbon in them, some more than others...

fresh green leaves can be a green, while fall dried fallen leaves are a brown...
Some freshly chipped live wood might be green, but chipped dead wood is probably a brown.

gosh -- I wish I did better in science in school.

me -- i just toss it all in and give it a roll and hope for the best.

-- thanks joepye

I am getting a "debris loader" which is a big vacuum that sucks up leaves, dirt, sawdust, manure, pine cones, pine needles, small sticks, paper, bark, ........ and grinds it up into smalish debris and blows it into the back of my pickup. Now I can go to the horse barn and suck up the cleanings, drive down the city streets and suck up leaves and soon have 40 to 50 yards of compost available each year for my garden. I can't wait. There is green and brown everywhere.
Ashes are neither because the carbon and most of the nitrogen have been combusted out of them. They are primarily calcium, potassium, magnesium, other trace minerals and a small amount of nitrogen. They are in a mineral mix which can increase the PH of soils so areas where it is already neutral (7 or Higher) it is not a good thing. I put a measured amount into my compost pile which is acidic (3cuyrds + 5 gallons of wood ash) because my soil is 6.5 to 6.9 here.

The green versus brown thing can be confusing. I think the easiest "definition" is that if it was collected while it is still alive then it is a green, it was collected after it died naturally then it is a brown. Though looking at the list of items posted by johnsonjrbm (which is pretty good) there are a lot of items that don't really fit. I have been told that even freshly chipped wood is a "brown" because only the outer layer of a tree is actually alive.

40 to 50 yards!!! You are making me real jealous! I figure that my meager two bin system (the smallish plastic ones) can produce about 1 yard on a good year. Unfortunately I end up spending too much money every year on bagged soil amendments.

- Brent

Brent look one (Debris loader) up on the internet. You will see a garden of eden in less than 3 years. Ruth Stout had 10 years of piles before she even started writing. Well I will catch up to her in less than 3 years and no grass piles. I truely respect all of her ideas and she has taught me much. Here here Ruth your the best!

A little more clarification-

"Greens" and "browns" are terms that were originally used to simplify distinguishing higher nitrogen-containing materials from lower nitrogen containing materials. However, since some "greens" such as coffee grounds and chicken manure are actually brown in color, it also has added to the confusion.

For example chicken manure, fish wastes, bone meal, seed meal, and hair are considered "greens" because they have a carbon to nitrogen ratio (C:N) of about 6 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen (6:1). Even though they have much more carbon than nitrogen, they are considered "high-nitrogen" materials. Another rule of thumb -- protein averages about 6:1 C:N, so high protein equates to high nitrogen.

At the other extreme is sawdust (a "brown") which has a C:N of around 500:1, i.e., almost no nitrogen.

Somewhere in between are horse manure and alfalfa hay (12:1), seaweed (25:1), cornstalks and cardboard (50:1), and paper (150:1 to 200:1). All ratios are very approximate, and depend on factors such as the quality of animal feed that is converted to manure, amount of glue in cardboard, etc.)

Most references suggest an ideal initial C:N of 25:1 to 30:1 for a compost pile, which should decompose to approximately a 12:1 final ratio.

Synthetic fertilizer can have even higher nitrogen amounts. For example, pure urea has a C:N of 3:7, about 14 times higher than chicken manure. Some folks who are short on "greens" occasionally spike their compost piles with urea to jump-start the process. Although generally not approved by organic certification organizations, in a sense when you compost with urea, you're converting a concentrated synthetic fertilizer into a diluted "organic" one.

Time to stop typing. I've got to rest up to pick up some free manure this weekend (smile).

Wow, Soferdig!

1. What size is your debris loader?
2. When are you coming to visit?

Now we know what the red capital "S" on Sofer's chest stands for: "ShredderMan" !!

We were pricing out one of the walk-behind models this year. It would save a tremendous amount of time, but the budget weenies on the board decided NOT to fund it this year. Drats!

TCS - I'm interested in how that composter works out for you... Please keep us posted.

I am working on buying a 13 to 18 HP. I want a used one that is close enough to montana to pick up.

johnson -- I'll do that. I have high hopes for it.

I, personally do not have enough property to have a compost pile, so i figured something more discrete on the State property behind my house would be OK. (not an eyesore) So i went with that lil guy... I have been enjoying using the "tea" that it produces... my plants love it too.

Terese

13 - 18 HP? That's great!