Sunday, May 23, 2010

Soil improving

My front yard has horrible clay problems. I decided to import soil from Boring Bark. It was a small fortune but I think that it will be worth it in the end. I've ordered a 4 way soil mix and a large amount of cow manure (for the nitrogen loving plants).

Steve Solomon says tht at his remedy for clay soil is just to import more soil on top and consider the clay the subsoil. So that is what I am trying to do.

I'm not sure what to do about the fruit trees that I've planted. Most of the collars of the trees are well above ground, so I think I will just put soil up to the collars and hope that the worms will mix the soil in for me. I don't want to dig them up and damage the roots.




I've decided that since so much soil needs to be imported I will be growing most of my potatoes where the other crops have failed. I placed the potatoes right on top of the clay and put the soil on top. As they grow, I will hill up more of the soil mix around the potatoes. I've got a lot more potatoes to plant, so most of this half of the yard will have potatoes and large amounts of soil planted on top. Hopefully the worms will work on getting some of the soil mixed in for me.

The other nitrogen loving plants (garlic and kales and such) will be getting a much higher dose of the cow manure. Hopefully it won't be too much, but I'm worried that my garlic hasn't grown enough to bulb out much once that time comes. It really hasn't gotten much energy stored yet. I think I will take a pitchfork and poke drainage/oxygen holes around.


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