How best to prepare the earth?

[greenmom01]

Hi everyone. I've been a member for a couple of months now, and have done nothing but lurk, reading everything I can find here-- man there's a lot of information here. My DH and I have just bought our first home (not even done unpacking yet); its not in the country, so we will be limited on how self sufficient we can be, but I am trying my best to make our home as independant as possible. I would like to have a garden next year-- way too late for anything this year. My question is this: Our backyard is nothing but dirt, hard packed, almost sandy on the surface and covered with goat-heads; the previous tenant had two large dogs that lived in the back so he never did anything with the yard. Is there anything I need to do to the area that I would like to have for a garden to help ready it for planting in the spring? Or, do I just wait and till it up in the Spring and just plant and see what happens?

Thanks for your help in advance, I'm kind of new at everything.

[nomad7inwi]

One of the easiest things to do would be make raised beds and start throwing compost in the beds. Leaves, grass clippings, food waste, egg shells, shredded paper, manure, neighbors leaves, if you can get bags of dirt on clearance at the end of season add that. Get a book on composting to learn more. But all winter it will be composting, and hopefully finished by this spring, and regardless of what the land used to be, you'll have great beds.

More experienced people will offer more and better advice I'm sure.

[chickenista]

Excuse me... goat heads? That must look a little creepy.
I would mark out what you want for beds and start layin on the organic material. Newspapers, cardboard, leaves.. anything you can find. Really pile it up. Plant cover crops/green manure to break up the hard soil (google to see whatgreen crops work the best for breaking hard pack, I don't know where you are so..I don't know what to plant when.) Turn your green crops over and plant again.
I also just moved (June) and turned my lawn into a very productive garden with the cardboard from all my boxes and some old straw. I didn't even dig up the grass, just laid the cardboard and the newspapers from my kitchenware and poked holes through to plant in. With a whole seasonto feed and build your beds you should have a stellar garden next year and a great base for years to come.

[fretti]

Ditto on what the posts above said.

I moved to a new house 7 years ago that had, what I affectionately called, "contractor's compost." There was no decent earth left and the builder had covered over chunks of glass, wiring, metal, wood - you name it but totally devoid of earthworms and hard as a brick.

I brought in several loads of decent soil and piled it on that ground to a depth of several inches. I then did lasagne composting right over all of this - sheets of leaves, grass clippings, coffee grounds, yard debris, etc. Within 2 years, I had a lush garden with gorgeous soil. Even better, when I dug down through the added layer of soil, the ground underneath was soft and loaded with worms. The worms had pulled the organic matter down into the lower layers.

Good luck!

[greenmom01]

Thanks everyone for the great ideas-- especially the moving boxes, cause I have plenty of those, and I will do some reading on composting too. By the way, "goat heads" are what we call these horrible, little, spikey, stickers that seem to be able to grow anywhere around here (New Mexico). I don't know if they have another name, but since I've been living in this state that's all I've ever heard them called.

Thank again everyone.

[chickenista]

Ohhhhh! I had visions of goat skulls littering your yard and was thinking that the previous owner had let the dogs chew on them after slaughter. Don't I just feel like a weirdo. I was impressed that you would buy a place with skulls all over it.

[rocket]

The one thing not mentioned yet that I would really recommend is to do a little examination of your existing soil to better know what you're starting with:

1) Check your drainage: Dig a hole about a foot and a half deep. Fill it with water and see how long it takes to drain. If it drains in minutes, you'll need to worry about improving your soil to retain water. If it drains in hours, you're pretty well set. If it drains in days (or never, like mine), then raised beds may be your only choice.

2) Check your composition: Fill a glass jar about two thirds full with your soil. Top it off with water, shake it up really well, then let it settle. It will settle into layers: sand, silt, and clay, with organic matter floating on top. A good soil is a mixture of all of these things, so this test can help you decide what you want to add to your soil.

3) Check nutrients: You can send a sample of your soil to various places for testing, or you can find test kits to do it yourself. Different tests will tell you different things, but at a minimum you will learn the Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K), and pH level. This will help you understand which ammendments are good or bad ideas for your soil.

[Jenn]

I moved last year and made raised edged beds (because I'm on a slope and I hear the rain will wash whole gardens down such slopes) with cedar, put several of my cardboard boxes on top of the grass, then piled in dirt/sod from some digging and/or moldy hay (not in all of them), several inches old straw, and then compost (I had 12 yds brought in) on top for 5-10" and have had a successful sq ft type garden going on. In retrospect I should have: put a good thick layer of branches/logs in the bottom of the 16" high beds maybe atop the cardboard (see hugelkultur thread), put even more straw and cardboard in (it has all sunk down to 50% or less), and put thick layers of cardboard inbetween the beds before I put the woodchips there (since now I have a fine crop of grass especially invasive hay where I used that in the beds growing up through the woodchips- they loved the extra water and nitrogen leaching out at the edges of the raised beds- wish the lawn I've been trying to nurture would flourish so).

Anyway quite easy to go up instead of dig in, and if you can't buy any compost or clean dirt you could still layer free (except labor) mulch items and then spread a thin layer of weed free dirt dug up from your yard and you'll do well. You might not need edges on your raised up beds though which makes it even easier. Best of luck; let us know what you try and how it works.

[Getting There]

I have a big problem with quack grass (underground runners). I started some beds a few years ago by piling on organic material (although not cardboard, that probably would have helped) and the quack grass was completely undeterred. I want to greatly expand my gardens next year so I'm trying the black plastic method. I put down organic material then covered it with black plastic for the winter. We'll see if that works any better. Of course with your hardpan that may be less than ideal, but I thought I'd share anyway.

[Windy in Kansas]

Goat heads aka Mexican sandburs more properly called puncture vine. They produce the seeds with several two pronged stickers growing together that separate when mature and dry. Most of us know them for damaging bicycle tires after they stick into the tire and are forced in by our weight as the tire rotates.

They dig pretty easily as each plant has a central taproot at the center of the rosette shaped plant. Try not to drop the seed as you pick up the plant for disposal as it can linger in the soil for several years.

As everyone has stated now is an excellent time to get started preparing the garden location. I'm not sold on raised beds as others are but they no doubt work well for some and better in some climates and conditions than others. I do well without them where I live and I see few in our area.

From reading I have learned that they do help the soil warm up quicker in the spring. I have also learned from experience and reading that raised beds take considerably more water as they drain readily which is a great advantage in some areas.

If you turn over even a few spadefuls of soil daily you will soon have the area worked up. Husbands are for grunt work so you might wish for him to work it the first time. The deeper it is dug the better. You may wish to read up on double digging by using a search engine to reveal sites with information. The loosened soil will be somewhat fluffed up so viola you will have your raised bed. lol

Others have put you on the right track by suggesting adding organic matter. It is the key to great soil. Most anything will do but be sure to balance carbon material with nitrogen so that it doesn't rob the soil of it thus robbing it from plants while breaking down. The matter can simply be spread on the garden to sheet compost but it will break down much quicker if it is turned into the soil. it doesn't have to be completely buried as worms will find it and do much of the work for you.

As you can read I personally believe that a garden should be worked up at least once in the making. From then on you can use the lasagna method or the Ruth Stout method of gardening or whatever works for you.

BTW, Ruth Stout books are very interesting reading. If you can find the first one she wrote read it first. She sounds more down home and real in it and more like she is trying to impress people in the second and later books.

How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back is one of them.
http://www.biblio.com/books/60770012.html

Be sure to send off for a few seed catalogs. You can learn a lot about growing from them.

I highly recommend that you start off growing All American Selections varieties as they have achieved the honor by growing well throughout the US.
http://www.all-americaselections.org/Default.asp

Later on if you wish to grow heirloom varieties and open pollinated ones by all means give them a try. For starters though the AAS winners are somewhat bulletproof because of disease resistance, insect tolerance, and weather conditions.

Have fun and enjoy eating the fruits of your labor.




After it is turned it will mellow and be easier to work in the future.