iDRY Vacuum Kilns

Sponsors:

gardening soil

Started by Compensation, April 27, 2013, 08:22:52 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Compensation

This is my first year at gardening and I have tilled up a nice size first time garden 30x35. I have a lot of clay in it. Now I am going to buy some sort of top soil to mix in it. I just don't know what I should get. I can buy a truckload of top soil or bags of gardening soil, planting mix, or a combination. What should I get?
D4D caterpillar, lt10 Woodmizer, 8x12 solar kiln, enough Stihl's to make my garages smell like their factory :) Ohh and built Ford tough baby!

Magicman

Nothing equates to true topsoil, but it may also have clay.  I use some of the bagged stuff which is tilled into my soil.  This gives me a texture that does not compact.  My garden is small.
Knothole Sawmill, LLC     '98 Wood-Mizer LT40SuperHydraulic   WM Million BF Club Member   WM Pro Sawyer Network

It's Weird being the Same Age as Old People

Never allow your "need" to make money to exceed your "desire" to provide quality service.....The Magicman

Compensation

Well magicman, I can buy some dark topsoil at the race track where they sell mulch. Or make a trip to menards or lowes. I am planning on tilling in whatever I get today.
D4D caterpillar, lt10 Woodmizer, 8x12 solar kiln, enough Stihl's to make my garages smell like their factory :) Ohh and built Ford tough baby!

thecfarm

I have no idea about your question,but I do know I would start a compost pile and really get into doing that. Your soil will need it. I use to have one that I would turn with my tractor. It was a good size pile. Lots of lawn clippings,leaves and anything else I could get my hands on. We use to have chickens,I used straw for bedding,that helped alot. Than we had a couple goats too. The neighbor up the road would give me thier manure from various animals too.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

Compensation

 I have 5 horses so I can clean stalls today. I want rabbits for there amazing pellets. I also have a pull behind sweeper. My goal was to put vegetable scraps in a plastic 55gallon drum and mix that in. As for right now I am just thinking of what would give a good first time compost asap.
D4D caterpillar, lt10 Woodmizer, 8x12 solar kiln, enough Stihl's to make my garages smell like their factory :) Ohh and built Ford tough baby!

Axe Handle Hound

I personally got really tired of the labor of turning over a compost pile and now I just bury the vegetable scraps, etc between the rows in the garden as they accumulate.  I figure the worms can do my work for me.  Another good source of compost is coffee grounds.  I collect them at work and it amounts to about 5 gallons of grounds per month.  Not a lot or very fast, but it's great organic matter.  Local coffee shops may be glad to give their grounds to you.

thecfarm

Axe Handle Hound,remember I said tractor.  :D  But you are right. It is a bother.
In my area people use shavings or sawdust for the bedding for horses. I'm not a great believer of adding wood products to a garden unless it's all broken down. But others do it and it works good for them. I put lawn clippings right between the rows to help out with weeds.
I have a garden up by the house that we have been building the soil up for 30 years.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

sandhills

If you have 5 horses, problem solved.  I wouldn't bother much with composting I'd just till it in every year but that's just me, very high in nitrogen.  Maybe take a few samples and that will tell you a lot also.

Compensation

You know how horses treat round bails of hay? Well once they eat the center out and before they start using it as a restroom, we get that in the stalls. So its hay and poop in there. No wood.
Sandhills, do you think that would be enough though? It just seems like I should add something more rich.
D4D caterpillar, lt10 Woodmizer, 8x12 solar kiln, enough Stihl's to make my garages smell like their factory :) Ohh and built Ford tough baby!

Left Coast Chris

We have two horses and my wife piles the manure in a large pile all year.  In the winter I skim off the top and the rest is full of worms and is black.  The composting is done and ready for the garden.   If you can apply old manure (black) and rip it in then rototill you would have much better soil then trying to add top soil or stuff from the store.

Another bagged product used for clay soil is gypsum.  It is supposed to keep the soil loose.  Clay is fertile since the particles are so small and available for the plants.  The problem is compaction, lack of oxygen and water issues.  At the place we used to live, I tried gypsum but it was pretty iffy.     A 50-50 mix with composted manure would be great. 

A successful garden is other things also.  One old farmer asked this one time..... "do you know the best thing you can have in your garden?    --- your shadow".   If you are there to water, weed, trap gophers etc that is the biggest part of the success.

I used to have problems maintaning my garden until I put in some 32" high raised beds with fabric in the bottom to stop the gophers.  Dont have to bend down.  Filled them with 50-50 sandy loam soil and composted horse manure.   My artichoke plant is 4'high and has 7 artichokes on it in its second year.   Best I have ever done and the maintenance is not too bad.  No compaction from walking around them and I enjoy gardening alot more.  Putting in another 4'x12'x32" high today.
Home built cantilever head, 24 HP honda mill, Case 580D, MF 135 and one Squirel Dog Jack Russel Mix -- Crickett

Yoopersaw

I turned a old road bed into a very nice garden using horse manure over a few years.  That and a lot of tilling and rock picking.

sandhills

Horse manure is about as rich as you can get (without raising sheep, so I've been told  ;D) if you have a coop or conservation office close get some of the little baggies from them and give them some samples, these will tell you the ph of the soil and anything it might be lacking.  If it were me I'd just go with the manure the first year and see how it does.  I did have an algebra teacher in highschool that had topsoil hauled in by the truck load though, I had to build him tomato "crates" that were 8' tall.  Needless to say he took his gardening a little more serious than I take mine and I still stink at algebra  :D.  My garden has been planted for three weeks now and it's still in my basement, suppose to freeze again this Wednesday, it needs transplanted badly!

Magicman

Horse manure if really hot.  We never used it until it had composted a while to keep it from burning plants.  Cow, chicken, and rabbit manure seemed to be OK after it had dried.
Knothole Sawmill, LLC     '98 Wood-Mizer LT40SuperHydraulic   WM Million BF Club Member   WM Pro Sawyer Network

It's Weird being the Same Age as Old People

Never allow your "need" to make money to exceed your "desire" to provide quality service.....The Magicman

Axe Handle Hound

Quote from: thecfarm on April 27, 2013, 09:47:30 AM
Axe Handle Hound,remember I said tractor.  :D  But you are right. It is a bother.

Duly noted thecfarm....if I had a tractor with a bucket I'd probably have a traditional compost pile as well.   

SLawyer Dave

As has been mentioned, you really don't want to put fresh horse manure into your garden in the spring, as it will be too "hot" and rich in nitrogen and burn the roots of the seedlings and can under certain conditions cause potential bacterial contamination problems.  Its best to let the manure compost for a year, either in a pile and turn it over a few times to aerate it, or by spreading it out on the garden area a few inches thick in the fall, (if you don't have a winter garden), and then tilling that in come spring.  Both approaches will allow the manure to compost and as an added benefit, spreading out the manure a few inches thick will really decrease any weed problems.   

My favorite trick is to take all of the leaves that I would otherwise have to rake up and haul off to the green waste dump in the fall and instead spread those over my garden area.  I then bring in a couple yards of horse manure, and spread that over the top of the leaves, (maybe an inch depth of manure).  I then let it set all winter.  No turning, aerating or anything else.  Just letting nature due its trick.  The leaves encourage air to circulate, the rain breaks down both the leaves and manure, washing minerals and nitrogen into the soil.  Then once the ground starts to dry out in the Spring, I till it all in to the soil.  This gives me a lot of organic material in the soil that both prevents compaction and encourages even soil moisture. 

Like you, I am having to start a new garden this year without a lot of lead time, (as we are renting out our house and moving into my mother-in-laws 30 miles away due to some health issues of hers), and she has very compacted and clay based soil.  I know it will get better with time, as I am able to introduce more organic material into the soil, but for this year, all I have been able to do is till in several yards of composted horse manure/hay.  Adding additional "top soil" would be unlikely to help a lot, as the clay soils are fertile, just very susceptible to compaction.  So composted organic matter will be the best solution, as that is the best way to protect against compaction.  You can also add some sand, but you have to be careful about adding too much.  Good luck.  Let us know how the garden turns out. 

sprucebunny

I have clay-ey soil and not much top soil. I add as many bales of "Pro-Mix" as I can afford each year. Usually 2-3 for 30x30. And a couple bags of dyhydrated manure.
When I make rows, I add more Pro-Mix and manure under each plant or patch.

Peat moss or mulch hay should help clay soil, also.

I've been doing some rototilling the last few days, also  ;D



 
MS193, MS192 and an 026  Weeding and Thinning. Gilbert Champion sawmill

Seaman

Add worms to your mix, they will tunnel the clay to help break it up.
Frank
Lucas dedicated slabber
Woodmizer LT40HD
John Deere 5310 W/ FEL
Semper Fi

WH_Conley

I like your style of Rototilling Bunny.
Bill

ST Ranch

I agree with other about fresh horse manure. Need to compost it for at least one full year [I do it for 2-3 seasons with horse manure or 1 season with cow] - it is much better if you can add at least 25-50 % straw or hay to the mix of manure, about 10% soil and as well as lots of water as you turn it. If it gets too hot, manure and straw will heat up and turn grey - too hot. [Maybe at the west coast where there is lots of rain, one season will work].
If very clay soil, adding a bit of sand or sandy loam [soil with > than 50% sand] to help increase porosity and lessen compaction. Clean straw s also a great mulch to add even it has not composted, especially if has been chopped fine.
My experience with bagged top soils, mixes etc is they are not regulated in terms of what and where the product comes from - for example, in one northern Canadian city [won't use name] the city takes their organics from the garbage and their solid waste sludge from their sewage treatment plant, mix and compost it and then sell it commercially in bags as organic top soil - no treatment of sludge or the inorganic or pharmaceuticals, etc   - so buyer beware.
Best if you can find a local farmer [and not a feed lot cuz waste from same is very high in salts and antibiotics and will NOT compost] or other supply of good compost/top soil - check out your source carefully.
Agree with others that grass clippings are also a great product to add to your compost or directly between the rows as green manure - just hoe it in. 
LT40G28 with mods,  Komatsu D37E crawler,
873 Bobcat with CWS log grapple,

Thank You Sponsors!