first square foot garden- store bought compost and soil drainage/ structure?
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Question by aniumus: first square foot garden- store bought compost and soil drainage/ structure?
Hi! little help needed here….
I just started my first square foot garden (I live in zone 5a, midwest)- I have two 4×4 aprox 11 inch high beds with drainage-hole-poked weed block fabric underneath and I am concerned about my “soil,” make-up.
I watered the beds for the first time today and I feel a bit worried. Moisture didn’t get wet all the way down until I made my beds look like a swimming pool for a bit on top… maybe that’s to be expected for the first watering? It seemed slow to drain down… also I had a bunch of vermiculite float up, and the texture of the wet soil seemed more course and dense than I had anticipated.
I did not follow the “mel’s mix” (1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 compost) recipe because of cost, research on all compost beds, and desire to have slightly deeper beds…. but here is what I have:
In each bed there is:
1 Cubic foot mushroom compost from nursery
1 Cubic foot mushroom compost from wal-mart
1 Cubic foot wood-fines compost from wal-mart
1 Cubic foot cotton-burr compost from nursery
1 Cubic foot hen manure compost from nursery
1 Cubic foot cow manure compost from nursery
1 cubic foot “5 mix” from wal-mart (compost, peat moss mix)
2 compressed cubic feet of peat moss (half a 3.9 bale)
2 cubic feet of medium vermiculite (half a 4 cubic FT bag)
depth – aprox. 9 inchs, now less after watering, more like 6-7
plants to grow – carrots, tomatos, cukes, zucchini, basil, onions, beets, peppers
Have I gone wrong somewhere? Should this be ok? Should I throw some seeds in and hope for the best or try to add something else?
If I missed anything, is it too late to add something and mix well now that it’s all moistened?
Thanks for your help!!!
please please any suggestions will be helpfull!
Feel free to answer in the comment section below
One Response to first square foot garden- store bought compost and soil drainage/ structure?
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You may have watered too fast. Try turning the hose on just enough to trickle, and leave it running for hours til you get it wet to the depth you want.
Also, your soil mixture is very rich in organic materials and you might not get good drainage, or there might be too much nitrogen. You could possibly have that beginner’s disease where we all try too hard. If twas me, I’d have not used peat moss because it can mat up under certain conditions. One kind of compost mixed with plain old loam would have been fine. Don’t be afraid of a little sand, it helps with drainage.
Can you plant a variety of things that are “heavy feeders”, like rhubarb, along with the other plants that have different needs – then if some die, at least you have the others, and you will know if your mixture is too rich or not.
Or, can you shovel your mixture out onto a tarp, pull up the fabric, dig out some soil from underneath the fabric, replace it with half of your mixture that’s on the tarp, replace the weed fabric (if you want – personally I don’t think you need it with 6 inches of new soil on top, and if you get rid of it, your bed can improve because of the rich mixture you just buried, plus earthworms that can crawl up and help with soil structure) then take the soil that was underneath the fabric and mix it with the remainder of your mixture that’s on the tarp, water s-l-o-w-l-y and then plant?
Also, it’s fun to make one’s own compost, if you can.
Good luck! You’ll be gardening circles around everyone soon!
Kacky
February 11, 2012 at 9:37 pm