Wood chips will soak up the nitrogen so be sure to add a heavy N layer in the fall and till it in. Potash will be very low too so add plenty this year

I raised rabbits for a local butcher shop for 10 years and know what they can produce for fertilizer. Rabbit manure has 3 times the percentage of nitrogen than most farm manures. The 75/25 percent mix would not need additional nitrogen if rabbit manure made up most of the 75%. Chicken and goat manure contain only half as much nitrogen as rabbits but still twice as high as hogs.

Martin

great suggestions and ideas here. I love all the info. Paquebot is right, I want to garden this year. But I can also use the ideas for next fall, with the leaves and such. And boy, do we have leaves. I also love love love the hog idea, but hubby would probably throw a fit and fall in it. He's dealing well with the horses, chickens, guineas, dogs, cats, goats...and he's getting into the rabbits as well. He did okay with the beef steers, but he's a hold out on hogs for some reason. Yesterday we cleaned barns and piled all the bedding and manure by the future garden. I'll gather the cardboard this week, and get a load of the chips. I have my choice of bark chips, wood shavings, or planer dust. All I can use. Which is my best choice?

Since you no doubt have forgotten more about wood than most know, you know exactly what's available. Of your choices, I'd love to have bark chips shredded down to the consistency of chain saw sawdust. There's lots more surface area for bacteria to work on bark. And, there's also a certain amount of nutrients in it as well. Shavings would take longer to break down and I've never heard of anyone being happy with planer dust. At 25% of a 2" spread, that only amounts to ½" average so it's not going to be a nitrogen problem. Especially if it's somewhere around oatmeal size or thereabouts. Do not exceed 2" total with that mix or you just may have too much nitrogen rather than not enough.

Martin

thanks Martin, I'll get the bark chips. they aren't shredded down that small though, but I'll add manure and bedding and top soil.

For those uncertain as to how I arrived at what amounts to a maximum of only 1½" of manure, that much rabbit manure would be the equal to about 7" of hog manure for nitrogen. That's 2.4% versus 0.5%. Chicken and goat manure mix, by the way, would average around 1.2% and twice what cow manure would be.

Martin

I hope this isn't a hijack, but I have a question... I have tons of goat, horse and chicken bedding/poo. I have the new garden spot where there is a thick layer of hay from round bales being used there for a few years now. I would like to use cement blocks to make raised beds in 4ft by ? rows. do I put dirt in the beds on top of the hay, then add used bedding on top of the dirt? like the OP, I wish to use this for this years' garden. happily, hubs is bringing home a tractor today, (yipee!) so getting stuff moved wont' be near as much of a problem.

if I put a layer of dirt on the hay, do i need some poo between these 2 layers? if i go dirt on top of hay, then mulch, do you just dig a hole, put in the seed/plant and leave the hole open for the plant to grow up? and how thick to make that top layer of mulch? this part confuses me, seems like a thick layer of used bedding would be so hard for a little seed to grow up through.

What's underneath the hay? If that isn't suitable to growing anything as is, anything on top isn't going to much help to anything below. Quilts and blankets are nice but not when the mattress is a cement floor.

Martin

Martin, with raised beds, it doesn't matter what's underneath. Concrete is fine. Have you seen the rooftop gardens? No subsoil. :)

http://rooftopgarden.com/

Cardboard, newspapers, compost, hay, chips, and horse/cow/chicken/goat poo are available year round.

Yes, you CAN build the layers in the winter. Add in your kitchen scraps, too.

This is just my way, Chewie, but I would put poo on the hay, then dirt. Plant in the dirt this spring, then mulch around the plants (if you are doing intensive gardening) or between the rows after the plants are up.

If you use bedding plants, you can mulch more quickly. If using seeds, yes, you are right. Leave the dirt layer exposed.

the soil underneath might be ok, I don't really know, so would rather put something that I am certain of on top of this mass of hay. in fact, i think i'll have hubs put a layer of used bedding down first, then dirt (have access to stuff that is from old cattle yard and it is black as coal, rich and soft and looks like miracle grow!)

loved this!

I put a huge amount of rabbit manure, what with, last year me haveing around 125 rabbits on my 18 X 36 sdmall garden. I didnt notice anything spactacular in growth of beans, which did ok. Peas which did lousy, onions which did like they always did, and corn that never made. ears

Yes, and you will see that some of those instructions call for 15" of soil. That is just about what one gets in the usual double-digging bed system. Big difference between 8" and 15" when it comes to root systems of most vegetables.

Martin

Dig it, till it, plow it, whatever needs to be done to assure that it will drain properly. Then you're set for a long time to add manure, soil, or compost above it. It may be halfway decent now but anything added on top increases the p.s.i. on it and will compact it. A cubic foot of soil may be around 100#. Main advantage of raised beds is increased drainage. Enclosed raised beds can only dry through the surface and that benefit is lost if all of the rainfall is retained in the added material. They become like a bathtub with no drain.

Martin

ok, but this top layer of mulch...how can you plant a little seed and have it make it thru the mulch? do you stick in a finger deeply, then not cover up the tiny hole? maybe this is a dumb question!

If you have clay soil and you till the garden area or double dig, you've created a BATHTUB that will hold water IN that area when it rains or you water. Here in our heavy black clay soil, the ag extension folks FINALLY figured out why all the fruit trees died when you dug a hole and filled it with nice topsoil, etc. The clay around the pretty hole sealed off and the trees DROWNED because the topsoil in the hole saturated and could not drain off through the indigenous clay.

BUILD UP on clay. Don't till. Oh, did I say that already? :nanner:

Unless you just WANT to hurt yourself double digging when you don't need to. Or tilling and wrecking your shoulders. It's up to you. When you reach fifty-mumble years, you try to work smarter, not harder. :)

Personally, layering up and just planting is my preference. YMMV.

Chewie......... leave an open spot in the mulch about as big as a saucer or along the top of the row. THEN, AFTER the plants sprout and get above the mulch, add mulch to protect the roots. Yes, the sunlight needs to get to the soil surface to sprout your seeds. Yes, it will be easier if you are directly planting seeds to hold back the mulch for a while. I use a lot more bedding plants that I used to so that I don't have to worry about that. HOWEVER, there's just two of us at home, so I'm not planting gazillions of tomato plants, etc.

I found this:
Ruth Stout recommended "parting the mulch" like you'd part your hair with a comb to expose the earth beneath and then plant, leaving the earth exposed until the seeds germinate. Always plant in the soil itself. A heavy straw mulch also keeps the soil cool or even cold, and seeds do better in warm soil, so that's another reason to make the "part" as soon as possible, to let the sun warm it up. I'd make it at least 12" wide, too, so the straw didn't shade the sun's warmth or light.
Then, when everything is up and stabilized, she said you should move the mulch closer to the plants to prevent weeds from growing.

It's a little way down this page:
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/...910461.html?15

huge thanks to you alice!!!!

Keeping pigs in is easier than any other animal. Set T-posts about 8' apart, put the insulators on the t-posts for electric fencing. Set one row about 6-8" above the ground and another row 6-8" above that. Use 1" horse tape and make the two lines of electric fence. Get a 12v fence charger and hook it up to a deep cycle battery, drive a ground rod and once charged the pig will not cross the line. No need to fight pigs and try to build panels and solid fences, they are powerful animals and can root out just about any fence. The electric horse tape fence works every time. One pig will root out a garden in no time if the soil is damp. If I have time I'll post a pic tomorrow, showing you what one pic has done in a couple of months to the area we penned her up in.

Clay needs to be broken up... Period. Once you have a good mixed soil you can start with a layering technique in the following years. I have gardens here that produce very well and did so in their first year. I tilled, added organic material and tested the soil. Also knowing your plants and the PH each require will be of great value. Not everything grows well in the same composted soil.

The pig is the best idea on here as far as getting a small garden area ready in a short time. The amount of manure, cardboard and other stuff you will need to have a 8" deep garden will be counted in the tons if you don't till and just want a fertile layer. The clay will dry and absorb about none of the nutrients if you don't break it up.

We have heavy red clay and grow everything from fruit trees, fruit bushes, veggies and grain crops... Knowing the plant will help you succeed at gardening, instead of getting "a" crop, you can get fantastic yields with a little research... Which plants like heavy nitrogen, which don't.. Which like acidic soils, which plants would die in acidic conditions.

Gardening can be very easy, but very successful gardening takes a little knowledge.

The problem with getting all this advice on this and other forums is the general nature of the advice, people in one state seldom work with the same soils and conditions as you do. The general advice is good, but the best advice will come from neighbors that garden and even your extension office.. They actually work in the same soils you do.

One size fits all will not always work in gardening.

Maybe your clay isn't as deep as ours? Septic systems here aren't install with leach fields any more due to the soil.

I just do NOT understand why someone encourages all the hard work of digging/tilling when it's NOT necessary.

Do you have the option to sub soil with a chisel plow? Breaking up clay 12-18" down is very beneficial and is something that doesn't need to be done but every couple (or more) years.

Raised beds are fine and all, but unless you're going really deep with them (again you say you don't know much about your soil) you could have some serious drainage issues. Many vegetable plants go more than a foot deep ....

http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/HomePage.htm

^^ You should be able to map your property with this tool to get more information on soil composition (although not a substitute for a current soil test).

Amen on the no till. I wish I'd started out doing that instead of giving myself tennis elbow and sunburns and backaches trying to get rid of quack grass. Last year was our first year doing no-till and we had the biggest harvest we've ever had, with the smallest amount of work.

Black plastic and cantaloupe go together like you wouldn't believe. I literally got over 200 lbs of cantaloupe from our garden last year with almost no work - more than we could eat or give away. Our sweet corn was amazing, too - huge ears and not a single worm. All we did was plant 8 seeds in a circle, with clusters 4 feet apart, through cardboard and fertilized with rabbit poop. I never weeded it and frequently forgot to water it. The guinneas got in there and ate some bugs. Definitely going to repeat this year.

If you can get that much free wood chips and shavings, then go on and get as much as you can haul and pile it up for later. We try to keep a pile going at all times. It will rot in the middle and you just move it to the garden beds as needed. Sounds like you have a good source and so get it all now before it is no longer available.

We had a good source for free wood chips, did not get all of it and someone else beat me to it the next year! So - get as much as you can now and pile it up for later.

Also - see if the mill where you get the wood chips has what they call "skins" or sometimes it is called "culls" or "cuts" - it is the outside cut piece when they start to mill the log. They cut off a "skin" piece that is curved on the outside, sometimes still has the bark on it and they just get rid of it. Around here some folks fetch it for firewood. We get those pieces and use for laying in the bottom of the raised beds since it will smash the weeds, hold the paper in place and rot to make good soil. And we can cut pieces of it and use to build the sides of the beds. We sometimes whack several of the pieces together and the inside pieces will rot and...make good soil.

Good luck!

what did you spray there? if it was an herbicide you probably have put things in the soil not fitting for planting...you might want to choose another place.

herbicides and fungicides kill the things deep in the soil that feed your plants...but building up on top of it with the manure and stuff might help.

I would have smothered the weeds or solarized the area with clear plastic to kill off the weeds before choosing a spray..and it would have been ready in a couple of months.

Black plastic isn't a great renewable resource imo. And quack grass shouldn't be just tilled as you're just cutting rhizomes and mixing them back into the soil to create more growth. To get rid of it you'll have to also run a drag harrow after tilling to pull the rhizomes to the surface to dry up and die.

Another option that should be used in conjunction with tillage is smothering with a cover crop such as buckwheat or hairy vetch. Both are rapid growers and will smother it out.

I see too many people using unwillingness to do a proper job just because hard work is involved. If that were the case almost 500 years ago, the only foreigners on this continent would still be at Plymouth Rock. If one can't do something, wrong advice is to use one's personal inability or unwillingness to dissuade someone else from doing the right thing.

Yesterday was a good example of that. I've got some ground that needs a lot of help. It's pure silt and terribly lacking in humus and organic matter. Layering tons of mulch and waiting years for it to work its way into the the first few inches is out of the question. Best addition in the world is shredded pine boughs but must be fine enough to not take years to fully become humus. 24 Christmas trees had been collected initially. A 2-hour session with an electric chainsaw stripped them down. Then another 34 were obtained and an even longer stripping session ensued. Had to rest for a day before getting them closer to being able to be used. Yesterday was the day to run the boughs of 58 Christmas trees through a Merry Mac shredder. Actual working time was 4 hours with just two breaks. One break was to refuel the machine and second was when exertion brought on a wave of nausea. In the end, my back was refusing to bend and I was feeding the machine from a kneeling position. From there I had all I could do to get up due to cramps in the legs. Both shoulders were on fire.

However, not quite done yet since it's still too coarse to use unless it were going to be plowed under. Since the area involved was plowed and prepared last fall, it will have to be tilled in. That means that it has to be fine enough to not clog the tiller. Therefore the final step will be to run it through a bagging mower which will be another 3 or 4 hour session. Since that's also not the easiest job in the world, there's some muscles which need to mend for awhile before I demand 110% effort from them again. The irony of the whole works is that I will have that area only for this year. In October it will revert back to garlic. I only have it for other vegetables because we came up with about 3,000 less cloves than originally planned.

Yes, it was a lot of work and downright painful to accomplish something that I will get little use from. But there's two lines of thought here. One is that although I will get little benefit from my pain, I'll be leaving behind soil which will be many times better than I found it. Another is that if I advise someone to do something, it's going to come from personal experience. If hard work is involved, that's part of accomplishing the feat. Used to be that if you can't do something, hire someone else to it. Either way, if the job isn't important enough to do right, why bother even starting?

Martin

I've got nothing against your own fervent devotion to Ruth Stout and lasanga gardening per se, but I think this one is not accurate........the rototiller wasn't invented until 1937, and it didn't become popular until the late fifties, when GardenWay (maker of the TroyBilt rototiller) presented one to President Eisenhower for use in his garden in Gettysburg. In fact, I don't think Jethro or Thomas even had access to a gasoline engine.........

In the article you quoted:
"Why is deep tilling a bad thing?"

"Before I answer that, deep tilling doesn't apply to hoeing a row or using a pitchfork to turn over the first few inches of soil. Nor does it apply to tilling in, say, prairie sod to establish a new garden. Deep tilling means repeatedly cutting up soil with a roto-tiller."

If you are willing to go in accordance with the article you quoted, then, we probably can agree that "repeatedly cutting up soil with a roto-tiller" is something that is to be avoided. But, depending on the soil, the area, the climate, and many other factors, using a rototiller might be a useful tool --for example, exactly the situation of the OP in creating a new garden where there was none before. She(?) indicated that vegetables in the spot adjacent were doing decently--and that potatoes and carrots grew okay there, albeit there was some clay.......so, many of the suggestions were to just go ahead and apply a lot of what she already had on hand, plus adding some easily obtained wood type materials from the sawmill where they worked, rototill that in, and go ahead and make a garden this year.

Seems to me that would be the easy way to go.....This season, then, after things come up, do some hoeing , then add the top mulch to suppress weeds, then this Fall, go with the rabbit manure and litter again for continued fertility and organic mulch. A light rototilling in the Spring, if necessary would incorporate the mulches and manure, get them decomposing, promote some oxygen for the microbes, then let it dry out for seeds or plants--THEN, back to the mulching. (This is pretty much what I do each year, along with ground prep for any new rotation area I'm creating) Luckily I don't have severe clay or silt, so I don't quite have to go at it as hard as Paquetbot does--and I don't envy anyone who does......

Why the fervent defense?

geo

I don't think anybody here advocates repeated cutting or pulverizing the soil. I sure don't........

I always thought deep tillage was that below 12 inches.... sub soiler, chisel plow... 16" bottom plow....

I didn't read the article; I just provided info. Really don't care if you want to dig that deep. I'm not going to because it simply is NOT necessary, and wise people don't work harder, they work smarter. :)

There was another article that I provided with a discussion of damage caused by deep plowing, as it destroys the natural ecosystem of the soil.

Like I said..... plow and till all you want. :nanner:

Just providing the other side of the issue and being flabbergasted at those who want to expend hours of extra labor when there are much better things to do with the time.

If Bowie, Crockett, and Travis would have had that attitude, you'd be a Mexican!

Martin

All farming destroys the biology of soil (at least temporarily), one is disturbing the earth, no matter how ya slice it.

And I still dissent against the notion that deep tillage is never necessary. Maybe in *your* soil you feel it's not required, but in someone else's situation it may be the best (or only) solution to aerate the soil and get nutrients down into the channels that plants and forage require. Nutrients like calcium are upwardly mobile, phosphorus rarely moves in soil strata, trace elements need mixed in, nitrogen is leeched....

No till situations do sequester a lot of carbon which is a good thing, however over time one can create distinct strata of soil (not natural now is it) that create layers that nutrients, air, water can get trapped between.

One has to take into account what their goals are, over all plant health etc when determining what type of earth disturbance is necessary (if any) to continue to reap a quality and bountiful harvest.

Mother Nature experimented with the mulching method for over 10,000 years. It's estimated that forest soil is created at the rate of one inch per thousand years. That's about what accumulated in the north woods of the Great Lakes states and provinces in the form of duff on top of inert soil. Then nightcrawlers come along and eat it all in one year!

Martin

Gardening doesn't have much to do with Texas freedom, now does it?

I'm a born and bred Texan, raised in Austin, and now living on the HEAVY CLAY SOIL of south Texas on the coastal plain.

My grandfather fought in the Civil War on the side of the SOUTH.

Other grandfather fought in WW I. Dad on Iwo Jima. Hubby served during the VietNam era, but not there. Son has been to Afghanistan.

Your point is lost and bizarre. Go take spit wad pot shots somewhere else.

Texas freedom wasn't born of laziness. You claim to be "flabbergasted" that some people are willing to put a lot of effort into their land. Neither freedom nor farming has ever had a reputation as being easy.

Martin

I believe every garden area needs to be prepped for what its conditions are, needs are, drainage, and for the climate it is in. CLIMATE is very important! When we moved here, we had to level an area for our garden. The topography on our whole property is rolling in varying degrees. When we had an area leveled, it was done at a slant, for drainage since we didn't plan to till it. This was very rocky soil, but good soil... DH built raised beds on this, extended the area the following year, and built more, then more beds the following year. We brought in soil, then began using our own soil, adding our own compost, etc... to fill the beds as they were built. Heavy equipment was used for leveling, but everything else was done using shovels and hand tools.

Now, if the garden areas didn't slant to allow for drainage, there would be standing water, much like Paquebot is trying to convey occurs. If an area has drainage issues, you do end up with a bathtub, thereby drowning your plants. I have double-dug to initially prepare a garden area and never had to till it afterwards. Yes, hard work, but worth it!

Our orchard is a prime example of pigs, although we didn't plan on having them in there so long (had to fence around every tree but my Fig, as they didn't even touch that). They tilled it up, all vegetation was eaten, but the work isn't done. The orchard isn't flat by any stretch, rolling, all drains downhill. I am going to creating dips in front of the trees, upward grade, which will allow rain to collect, slowly draining down for the fruit tree roots. In addition, I will be creating pathways, building up soil where needed, adding compost, and layering wood chips on top. This will be a Permaculture conversion, to a degree, also marrying in some gardening methods I am fond of. Now what I just described? A few weeks of working hard, then I will have the entire orchard to plant. I won't have to till it, due to preparing it properly to start with. Now, I live in the PNW and we get a LOT of rain. What I am doing will decrease the need for watering, when we get dry spells.

For those who may have been flabbergasted by the amount of effort that I've put into doing in one year what Mother Nature might do in 10,000, there were 2 more hours involved Thursday. Facing the thought of a snowy forecast and the remains of 58 Christmas trees atop most of my back lawn, combination wasn't what I wanted.

Wasn't certain if there would be live grass if next opportunity was in late April. So, out came the 21" Craftsman mulching-bagging mower for the next step. Blade had been sharpened last fall so it was ready to go to work. Where the Merry Mac stuff was only 8" or so deep, no problem to slowly work into it and let the blade reduce everything to about oatmeal-size bits. Deeper piles were then raked into shallower windrows to be attacked.

Mower bag holds about 15 gallons and this was as heavy or heavier than grass. It was two mower bags per 30-gallon leaf bag and I filled 15 bags, 450 gallons. Each bag is probably 75# or so but I'm only interested in how much area they will cover. Each bag will be spread on approximately 144 square feet. Still must be handled twice more. Need to carry them over 100' to the truck to be loaded and then offloaded and spread in the field.

Yes, lots of work and we could have spent a few hundred dollars to bring in the needed material from elsewhere but no need for that as long as we have the capability to do it ourself. Every drop of sweat was worth it as the resultant garden area will be forever better than it is now.

Martin