I've dug a shallow grave, what am I doing? In over my head..

[LBlala]

I've spent a sort of obsessive amount of time on here trying to find similar questions to mine & answers, but finally thought I'd post my 1st forum post in my life (self sufficiency broke me, gave sore muscles)..Sorry for the length, I couldn't seem to be concise...

I live in a rented 150yr old row-house in Washington DC. I attempted containers last year/my 1st yr at this house (I thought I might move & somehow take em w/ me), & failed. It's hot here, like 90-105 ave summers? They often needed water 2x a day, & I was terribly inconsistent (I thought, but looking back could have just been the top 2" were dry).. I didn't know about 'details' like fertilizing, self watering pots, shading, pollinating (anything). I got a weak few tomatoes, blossom end rot, cracks, dropped fruit, all of it, I wasted a lot of money on soil, etc... BUT, I learned!

THIS year, I researched (a LOT), dammit, & want to do it RIGHT! So glad to have found this resource.. I live for tomatoes, & want to make em the best little growing ground I can. But, I have dug this shallow grave, & am freaking out & wondering if this was my Worst Idea

So here I've got a hole in my lawn 6 ft long, 3.5 ft wide, & 2 ft deep. The pics are from early on. The boyfriend (dangerously supportive of my poss insanity) & I dug it w/o any fancy tools. The reason why is bc everything except the already-amended strip on the side is solid clay, just a mess. Rain it just pools up, and when it's dry it often cracks & is like dry cement.
We've found a bunch of rusted up ancient things, rocks, etc down there... . I had this idea I'd have a long strip for like 8 beautiful plants (some beefsteak, some sm-med) with lots of fruit & that the roots would need room. We're willing to keep digging it longer for more plants 24 ft, but need a plan for what to do next, & MOST important, is it insane/necessary?

What now: keep digging longer & go with it? Fill it up with the same dirt & call it "double dug"? Fill it w/ what instead? Chem free grass clippings? I don't have much homemade compost, but can buy things.. Btw I have around the house gypsum, tomato tone, perlite, vermiculite, can get sphagnum peat.. (I have potting soil but that's not right I know)... Should I get the wood/type sides (like my neighbor's healthy 50+ yr old garden)?

Btw, I'm still boggled that med/large varieties can grow 2/earthtrainer... but the pics show it so I'm building one too, just need the fabric.

Thanks for your time, & advice!

[bcday]

That's plenty enough digging to start with! I would fill the hole in with amended soil before digging out any more. You can shovel a few inches of loose dug-out soil back in along with an inch or two of various amendments and mix it in place there in the bottom of the hole. Repeat until the hole is filled with amended soil.

Amendments can be things like peatmoss, bark fines, your perlite and vermiculite if you like ($$), composted manure (not too much, because overdosing with manure, even dried composted manure, can burn plant roots), shredded leaves, and grass clippings. I've used shredded paper as well although some have concerns about the ink on it.

You might want to use wooden sides, at least at first. For one thing, the loosened soil plus amendments won't all fit back into the hole and having sides around the bed will help to keep your nice new soil neatly in place until it settles a bit. And also, if the hole really holds water like a bathtub, raising the sides will help to keep the roots from getting too waterlogged.

Digging out the soil to a depth of two feet may not be necessary. I have clay soil here and only dig out one spade depth, amending the next deeper layer by dumping a couple of inches of amendments in the bottom and mixing it there to another spade depth down, without bringing all that subsoil to the surface.

[ddsack]

Not all of us are blessed with the ideal soil for gardening, or enough spare money to truck in loads of topsoil or amendments. So we make do with what we have, and it usually works out in the end.

My front garden had to go in a spot with hard white clay. You could probably have made clay pots out of it as it was. I was lucky to get someone with a tractor to till it the first few years or I probably would not have had the determination to double dig it all myself. I did have horses at the time, so had ample stable cleanings, both manure and half rotted straw with lots of dry fibers that had not decomposed. Every spring, I tilled in as much both dry and rotted material as I could. One year I got a load of sand and added that too. It was amazing to me that my garden did as well as it did, even in the early years. Luckily, it was not in a low spot where water pooled, or it might have been different. At least with clay you don't have to worry about watering it very often.
Eventually, I went to raised beds, and had to truck in some black dirt to add as fill. Over the years, the dirt has been re-mixed with the underlying clay, and the soil can still get hard when it dries out after a heavy rain.

What you can do, is put as much organic matter as you can to mix with your pile of clay - leaves, grass clippings, even layer some straw or hay in it, anything to break up the clay particles. If you can afford a few bags of soil, put that in the areas where you dig the tomato holes, or sprinkle it on the surface if you want to start seeds for other veggies. Use some kind of mulch if possible, after you get things planted.

[spacetogrow]

Agree with the idea of making it into more of a raised bed. My sister built a house on land with heavy clay soil and had to learn the hard way after much digging and planting that everything would drown that she planted in the holes. She had to raise her beds to get plants to survive.

[Crandrew]

I started with a sand base, just like a beach. I built raised beds and dug about two feet deep, filled with crappy compost and top soil and so far so good. Well except for the cucumbers they all died

Good Luck.

[Tania]

Welcome to the forum LBlala! We are happy to have another tomato lover joining us

I would have kept digging, but this is just me - I would not stop until I have all available land planted with tomatoes

bcday gave an excellent advice, and mine will be very similar - this is what I would do if I were doing this project -

1. loose up the clay at the bottom of the hole and generously add gypsym - it is help to break up the clay particles and improve drainage and soil quality, plus it is a calcium supplement
2. mix half of the original soil with composted manure or compost (half and half), add any organic material you may have at hand - i.e. coffee grounds, kitchen waste, leaves, grass clippings
3. add 1 part of compost (or manure), 1 part of good quality top soil, generous handfuls of perlite/vermiculite and peat moss to the remaining original soil - this would triple the volume of the remaining original soil - and put it all back into the hole. If you do not have peat moss you can skip it.
   
4. as a fertilizer, I'd mix 12 cups of alfalfa meal, 1 cup of bone meal, 2 cups of rock phosphate (or 1 cup of bone meal), 2 cups of wood ashes (you can use kelp meal instead), 1 cup of gypsym and 1 cup of dolomitic lime (to maintain calcium and magnesium balance) - and I'd mix this into the newly prepared soil. This should last you for a season.

Obviously adding some wood siding will be beneficial, but I would not sweat if I just pile up the soil without building the siding - but I'd cover the sides of the hole with thick layer of newspaper or cardboard first, so the grass will not start growing into the fresh soil mix, at least not right away!

Technically it is the best to plant tomatoes 3' apart, but I know some folks do it much closer together - even 1' apart, but be prepared for a tomato jungle!

[Tania]

Oh, one more thing I forgot to add - you do not need to dig 2' down - 1' down would be sufficient, as you can raise the bed level by 1' up. Less hard work, same or better result!

[delltraveller]

Don't rule out potting soil as part of the mix. I've used that as part of what I use to build new raised beds, plus any kitchen and food waste and scraps I can get my hands on (I put it at the bottom.), old cat food, leaves, grass clippings from untreated lawn...I empty out old potted stuff into it.....

Just make sure you don't get the Moisture Control stuff if you're putting a lot of potting soil in, particularly since what you've got is lots of clay. I've used Miracle Grow Potting Soil and Shultz Potting Soil, whichever is on sale or cheapest, with good results. They both have some fertilizer already mixed in.

[livinonfaith]

I'm going to agree with a lot of people on here.

It doesn't need to be that deep. Honestly, I'd say eight inches would be plenty, a foot tops. Since it's already that deep, I'd listen to Tania.

The reason it doesn't need to be deep is that in clay you need to raise the bed or you really are digging a big casket. A casket that will fill with water and drown your plants.

Trust me, I've had this happen. Not pretty.

I'll also agree that don't have to get fancy with your raised bed. I've done simple raised beds without sides for years. Just make sure they have little extra room to round the edges and you're golden. Even a six inches rise will make a big difference!

Good luck!

[stackhouse_kbtom]

u know they have drip emitters for containers if you ever wanna go that route again.... they are pretty cheap and easy to hook up.... u can also use polymers to decrease watering lol but i feel your pain.... we choose not use emitters and water by hand and it isn't a walk in the park

[LBlala]

Originally Posted by stackhouse_kbtom

u know they have drip emitters for containers if you ever wanna go that route

Yea, thanks to this forum, ha...I've got a lot to learn, I hadn't really known what a soaker hose is until a few months ago hrm.. So.. now I'm preppin to build an earthtainer, & am really tempted to fig out the drip emitted stuff too..

[LBlala]

Whew.. Amazing relief to have some advice, & details & options are super helpful... THANK you all! I had to take a bit to figure out where to get everything & price compare. It's been raining so I didn't get out to do much in the yard; luckily the tarp held & my hole/grave didn't fill up w/ rainwater.

Tania (or anyone), any chance Tomato-Tone would suffice for a fertilizer? Or this 'Magic Mix', a general purpose nutrimix I was given? Or perhaps together? I'm still learning my garden chem. The homemade mix, I was told, 'is good for everything'. I haven't used it on anything except flowers for a month.
Mixer's recipe is: Alfalfa meal, cotton/canola seed meal, kelp meal, a chicken guano named Cockadoodle Doo, & Milorganite made from composted human waste, epsom salts, & rock phosphate. She says "all are equal parts except for the Mg, phosphate and potassium, which is 1lb to 10lbs of the others".

I need to learn about these #s but in case anyone cares her recipe says "Alfalfa meal 3-1-2, Cottonseed meal 6-2-0, Kelp meal 1-0-2, Cackadoodle Doo chicken guano 4-1-2, Milorganite 6-2-0, Rock phosphate 0-3-0, Epsom salts"


I've found I can get most of the other items suggested, but sure about some, & then there's price... No alfalfa meal except online, only something at a feed store & pet store/cage bedding type stuff. I don't have wood ashes (or a fireplace) so was going to go w/ the kelp meal.. Best I've seen is $20/4lb bags.. Bone meal, kelp meal, gypsum, peat, & lime are each $10-$20 for 3-6lb bags... A tad online.. I don't have any good compost of my own right now, I expected to buy some but I know it won't be cheap. So that's at least $70 for soil prep (not incl peat). As I understand it, I'd mix all of the stuff into the ground now, not little at a time over a season, right?

...I'm lookin into the raised bed/wood sides for once the lil guys are out of their cups & safe in the ground. They sound like a good idea so my dirt doesn't wash down the city sewer as it's def increased in volume once out of the hole.

Also only going to allow myself to dig max 1' from here out.. Was def carried away... In my hours of research I kept seeing things like many toms hav 4' roots, but also many ppl are against soil amendments as the plant will act like it's a container & stay within the good stuff, becoming a runt. Good to know!

...Think I'll also stick one plant in some "not messed w/" ground as an experiment. Watch it produce 10x more!

[habitat_gardener]

Originally Posted by LBlala

i... No alfalfa meal except online, only something at a feed store & pet store/cage bedding type stuff. ...

I buy alfalfa pellets at a pet store! iirc, the 20 lb. bag was cheaper than the small box at the nursery.

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by LBlala

Whew.. Amazing relief to have some advice, & details & options are super helpful... THANK you all! I had to take a bit to figure out where to get everything & price compare. It's been raining so I didn't get out to do much in the yard; luckily the tarp held & my hole/grave didn't fill up w/ rainwater.

Tania (or anyone), any chance Tomato-Tone would suffice for a fertilizer? Or this 'Magic Mix', a general purpose nutrimix I was given? Or perhaps together? I'm still learning my garden chem. The homemade mix, I was told, 'is good for everything'. I haven't used it on anything except flowers for a month.
Mixer's recipe is: Alfalfa meal, cotton/canola seed meal, kelp meal, a chicken guano named Cockadoodle Doo, & Milorganite made from composted human waste, epsom salts, & rock phosphate. She says "all are equal parts except for the Mg, phosphate and potassium, which is 1lb to 10lbs of the others".

I need to learn about these #s but in case anyone cares her recipe says "Alfalfa meal 3-1-2, Cottonseed meal 6-2-0, Kelp meal 1-0-2, Cackadoodle Doo chicken guano 4-1-2, Milorganite 6-2-0, Rock phosphate 0-3-0, Epsom salts"


I've found I can get most of the other items suggested, but sure about some, & then there's price... No alfalfa meal except online, only something at a feed store & pet store/cage bedding type stuff. I don't have wood ashes (or a fireplace) so was going to go w/ the kelp meal.. Best I've seen is $20/4lb bags.. Bone meal, kelp meal, gypsum, peat, & lime are each $10-$20 for 3-6lb bags... A tad online.. I don't have any good compost of my own right now, I expected to buy some but I know it won't be cheap. So that's at least $70 for soil prep (not incl peat). As I understand it, I'd mix all of the stuff into the ground now, not little at a time over a season, right?

...I'm lookin into the raised bed/wood sides for once the lil guys are out of their cups & safe in the ground. They sound like a good idea so my dirt doesn't wash down the city sewer as it's def increased in volume once out of the hole.

Also only going to allow myself to dig max 1' from here out.. Was def carried away... In my hours of research I kept seeing things like many toms hav 4' roots, but also many ppl are against soil amendments as the plant will act like it's a container & stay within the good stuff, becoming a runt. Good to know!

...Think I'll also stick one plant in some "not messed w/" ground as an experiment. Watch it produce 10x more!

You can get a lot of stuff off Amazon for a decent price, like bat guano ( great stuff!), kelp/fish emulsion, which is my weekly mainstay, and fish meal, which is nice to mix in at planting time.
If you have a feed store, horse or rabbit alfalfa pellets are great and really condition the soil as well as fertilize.
★★★★ o doodle doo is good but the Milorganite, I use more for leafy veggies, or, preferably, my tropical vines/green ornamentals. Its a bit high in nitrogen ( mine says 12 something?

[Tania]

Mixer's recipe is: Alfalfa meal, cotton/canola seed meal, kelp meal, a chicken guano named Cockadoodle Doo, & Milorganite made from composted human waste, epsom salts, & rock phosphate.

This will work wonderfully, I think!

I am not familiar with Tomato tone, so I cannot comment.