Help my garden grow! What soil....

[Lux Et Veritas Academy]

Ok I am a gardner failure-

 

What is the best combo of soil- How do you prep your plot to be fabulous?

 

How do you design your layout?

 

Do you stake in squares?

 

My best success was with square foot gardening, but then I got rid of the boxes (because they would dry out so fast) and went to the ground. Now I am a failure!

 

Help! I need a head of lettuce!

[Chelle in MO]

I have NO gardening experience, but was reading about it on Ree's site the other day. You'd probably find some useful info there.

 

www.thepioneerwoman.com Click the "Home and Garden" tab, of course!

 

Chelle

[Happy]

Ya gotta know your soil. Do you have sandy soil or a sticky clay? Contacting your county extension office will yield terrific information.

 

In either case, fabulous soil comes from adding compost, mulch, and more mulch. Then add more compost. :D

 

If your soil is sandy, the compost and mulch hold moisture. If you have clay, the compost and mulch foster good drainage.

 

We have most of our garden in a dedicated area of the lawn. Within that area are a few slightly raised beds because our yard has drainage issues. We used landscape timbers for the 4x12 beds. We rotate our crops of tomatoes, peppers, squash, okra, beans, onions, broccoli, cabbage, etc. within these beds each year.

 

This year I am once again scattering a few tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and squash through out my flowerbeds. It's fun and gives me more room to try new varieties.

 

Water well, spend a part of every day in your garden. This will help you keep weeds at bay and you'll notice problems before they get out of hand.

[gardening momma]

This year I am once again scattering a few tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and squash through out my flowerbeds. It's fun and gives me more room to try new varieties.

That's what I'm thinking of doing in my front yard beds. I have one young blueberry bush there that I hope survived the winter. The funny thing is that right behind the blueberry bush, we had accidental corn grow last year. I never got around to removing it, so we had about 2-3 stalks growing smack dab in the middle of the front of the house.

[MomsintheGarden]

Ya gotta know your soil. Do you have sandy soil or a sticky clay? Contacting your county extension office will yield terrific information.

 

In either case, fabulous soil comes from adding compost, mulch, and more mulch. Then add more compost. :D

 

If your soil is sandy, the compost and mulch hold moisture. If you have clay, the compost and mulch foster good drainage.

 

:iagree:

 

The best way to build good soil is to add organic matter. You can add compost, various mulches, peat moss, manure, cover crops, seaweed, and many other things. Mulch like straw or hay keeps the soil most, suppresses weeds, moderates temperatures, and breaks down to make better soil.

 

For lots of tips building good soil, check out organic gardening books from your library. Here are a couple of good ones to start with:

Gardening When it Counts by Steve Solomon

The Complete Compost Gardening Guide by Barbara Pleasant

 

In our garden, we:

- Had heavy compacted clay soil.

- Have raised beds with no sides. They were dug by hand, but now we don't have to dig them every year because the soil is better. We just use a broadfork to loosen them up.

- Add as much organic matter as we can, always.

- Mulch almost everything with hay.

- Use homemade organic fertilizer. The Solomon book has a great recipe.

 

Take heart - really good lettuce can be tricky to grow. It likes cool temps, the right amount of moisture, good timing, and great soil. Different varieties do better at different times of the year, and head lettuce can be harder to grow than the leaf types. For many regions, now is a good time to start it, indoors or out.

 

Happy Gardening!

GardenMom