Salvaging a Garden "Blend"

I need some help.

I ordered 5 yards of a premium "Garden Blend" from a local supplier. It was the second time I'd ordered from them. The first was a load of beautiful topsoil that I used to fill my new raised beds.

Well this "blend" was a very big disappointment. Supposed to be a 3rd topsoil, 3rd Compost and 3rd sand. Was a very light brown color as opposed to the dark black I was expecting. I had words with the business and needless to say, I won't be doing business with them again.

Yesterday it rained very hard and the beds I had used this mix in had standing water in them while none of my other did. I suspect there may be some clay in it as well.

Here's my problem: I filled about 3 beds with this stuff. What can I do to correct the issue? I have a good source for compost. Should I get some and dump a few wheelbarrows in each bed?

I did plant some peach trees and an herd garden along with some marigolds in one of the beds that had this stuff and they seem to be doing ok.

Any advice?

BB

You should have some compost coming up BB. I always use my compost pile first in the new beds and the remaining on anything in need. Wood chips, sawdust, and manure are always my first additions to the new beds. I have laid 3 to 4" of shedded wood chips and added manure (composted) to several areas that I was unable to mix and the soil is spectacular since doing so. This I did on top of existing plants (shrubs not perenials).

I have a small flowerbed that seems to hold water. There are two trees in it. Last summer I planted coleus, some caladiums, ferns and two small Mexican heather bushes in it. The bed measures roughtly 5' x 7'. To date, I haven't done a thing to the bed to prepare it for whatever I'll put in it this spring. I have a bunch of zinnia seedlings ready to go somewhere and I still haven't planted the caladium bulbs.

I recently harvested about 1-1/2 5-gallon buckets of compost, and am wondering if I should chuck it into this flowerbed? When I prepared it last summer there were TONS of those infernal asparagus fern bulbules down in the dirt. I managed to get most of them out, and I laid a sheet of weed barrier down. Problem is running into the tree roots, too. After the weed barrier came a layer of some bootleg (not very ground up wood chippy looking junk) mulch and then a coupla bags of MG potting soil.

I know to use MG potting MIX this time. So, how do I prepare this bed for planting this spring? I'm a relative NEWBIE whose DGer friends made her first garden last summer a showcase that folks still are talking about.

I listen well.....

P.S.S. Do I need to dig all the way down to the fabric and start all over again in this bed? I'm thinking I need to raise the level a bit too. Here's a pic, with and without the flowers. It stays relatively shady because of the trees in it.

With the flowers in it.

That's a nice bed Gym!

BB

Bronx,
The bed in the pic is from LAST summer. This weekend I emptied all the old dirt from "dead" flowerpots and made some observations. Some soils had huge, fat worms. Some soils had NO worms at all. Some soil was lumpy, ooky, clay with not very many worms at all. Some "soil" was that potting stuff with the white styrofoam "pills" in it. NO WORMS WHATSOEVER in any pot that had this stuff in it. Which leads me to believe it ain't dirt at all!

My question was what to do with the old soil? Somewhere on another thread someone said throw it into the flowerbeds. So I targeted that little flowerbed in the pic, after I scooped back the layer of leaves that were placed on top as mulch for the summer.. Then I started wondering if I would be wasting my good compost by mixing it with the "trash" dirt. So I started separating the soils as best as I could, using the worms to guide me. If there were worms in what seemed to be viable soil, the worms got thrown into my new compost bed and the soil was kept. No worms meant it was trash soil/artificial potting stuff and it went aside. I found a huge container with nothing but sand, too. And then there were the containers with half soil on top of a layer of decomp leaves. This had a few worms, depending on the leaf decomp. Some was kept it if looked viable.

All in all, I threw a good bit of what seemed to be viable soil into that small bed. And, I supplemented and amended this with the newly harvested compost. I believe I did ok, but some help or comments on what andwhen to toss into the flowerbed for replanting and when to simply toss old soil into the trash would be appreciated.

P.S. my logic on the soil was that if the worms liked it, it was worth keeping...

Thanks.

Linda