My Plan to fill the new raised-raised beds...looking for comments

[z_willus_d]

Got it. Yes, I've got a history with over "Nitrogenizing" my grow pits to the point of Hades for the plants. I usually do that with manure, but this round I'm leaving the manure out of the mix. I'm going to be very careful about adding only a little of the Alfalfa pellets/meal, and mainly to add an organic component for worms to grab hold of. Yesterday evening, I stopped by Starbucks and got a good couple cubic feet of coffee grinds, so I'll be working some of this into the beds as well. I didn't buy there crap coffee BTW, but I'm sure the plants aren't as picky as I am about how they get there fix.

I'm hoping to get this bed in place and activated with good microbes and vermiculture at least three months ahead of planting. Something about all this fresh, scentless "soil" doesn't feel right to me. It needs to stink more, well earthy.

Edit: Oh, would you say 1 cup Alfalfa meal/pellet per 2'x2'x16" (LxWxD) volume would be about right? Again, not to really feed the plant so much as the soil and microorganisms/worms.

Thanks,
Naysen

[lakelady]

Naysen,

Boy you sure do go full guns on your projects, I give you a lot of credit for all that energy! lol.... I don't know much about the ingredients you are using, but was wondering, is there any real soil in there at all? Might be a good idea to get some topsoil and then amend that with the sand, humus, etc.? Just a thought from someone who really is no expert on these things, still learning.

[z_willus_d]

Antoniette, it's funny you mention the question of soil. I was just thinking the same thing, but then I'm not exactly sure what constitutes soil as opposed to all these other things. I've heard that topsoil's not much more than than crushed rock residual and sand and the like. I will say one thing. This grow medium I'm putting together looks, feels and smells nothing like the the soil from my old beds. To that point, I've decided to mix in a small amount of that soil, which I brought from the old house/beds. I'm hoping the microorganisms in that rich old stuff will have a positive effect on the very sterile new stuff. Of course, I'm also risking bringing over old nematodes/diseases and badness too.
-naysen

[fortyonenorth]

Naysen,

We crossed posts this morning. If you didn't see my reply to your magnesium question, it's on page 1 of this thread.

41N

[lakelady]

Originally Posted by z_willus_d

Antoniette, it's funny you mention the question of soil. I was just thinking the same thing, but then I'm not exactly sure what constitutes soil as opposed to all these other things. I've heard that topsoil's not much more than than crushed rock residual and sand and the like. I will say one thing. This grow medium I'm putting together looks, feels and smells nothing like the the soil from my old beds. To that point, I've decided to mix in a small amount of that soil, which I brought from the old house/beds. I'm hoping the microorganisms in that rich old stuff will have a positive effect on the very sterile new stuff. Of course, I'm also risking bringing over old nematodes/diseases and badness too.
-naysen

Well that's exactly what I was thinking....all the microorganisms from soil would really help the new beds along, as well as the minerals, etc.

I just thought topsoil was screened out soil that had been taken from point A (as in foundations dug up , new construction, etc) to point B.

In my town, I found out the leaf collection is now given over to a contractor who does topsoil, etc. I stopped at the DPW last week and saw big mountains of steamy piles of compost!!! I am begging for it. The DPW guys told me they can ask for a pile to be left for residents before they shut down for winter. I want to build 3 - 12' x 3' beds on my lawn in the side yard for more tomatoes since my garden is not very big and it's a nice sunny spot. Rather than try to figure out all the things that need to go there, I was going to do a lasagna type arrangement with some bags of leaves that I have and if I c an get my hands on that compost, I'd love to have some of that in there too.

Can you find out, maybe your town has something similar? Would be great to add that as an amendment. Of course, if you are like me, I've only got a jeep, no pickup truck so I'd be over there shoveling the stuff into contractor bags and hauling it home. Or else I could hope my 18 year old would do it FOR me. (one of the benefits of having boys I think!).

[z_willus_d]

LL- I certainly did seek out the lowest price options for compost, but I wasn't able to find a free city/county option, though I've heard they have existed in the past. In any case, I would have required delivery, and that can get expensive. In the end, I opted to purchase my compost from the same source as I got the sand and decomposed granite. And the best part- delivery was free. I'm adding coffee grinds, my old soil humus, alfalfa pellets/meal, and fresh worm castings in the hope of enlivening my lifeless soil medium. I'm hopeful the worms will take hold.
--naysen

[dice]

[dolomite lime]
Your first guess was to add 2 cups of dolomite per plant. That seems high
to me. The calcium would be fine, but it might raise the pH more than
one would want. So I suggested 1 cup per plant instead (which still seems
a bit drastic, but comparing to an Earthtainer, perhaps it would be just
right; you do need to compensate for the peat, which is around pH 5
usually).

I was not thinking you would overdose on magnesium with the dolomite
*and* sul-po-mag both being fairly slow-release, but you probably do not
need epsom salts the first year.

[z_willus_d]

Yesterday, I worked very hard and made just a little progress filling up the first 1/3 of my new Raised beds. It's very slow going because I have to get the various components from the front driveway, side-yard, backyard, mix-up in a wheel barrel and then drag up to the retaining wall horizon in 5-gallon buck increments. Argg.

Sometime a couple minutes before dropping the first 5-gal bucket, I realized I really needed to dig down a deeper trench, so I took it down another eight-inches to a foot from what you see there in pic1. That was back-breaking, as it's mainly just river-rock, sand and ossified clay in that region. Anyway, the next 2 pics show where things are at now with the grow medium filled-in.

At half-way up, I troweled-in the following to each 2'x2'x1' (LxWxD) half-cube:
- 1/2 cup Dolomite Lime
- 1/4 cup Alfalfa feed
- 1/4 cup Alfalfa pellets
- 2 large hand-fulls of Starbucks espresso coffee grinds
- 1 large hand-full of fresh worm castings with egg-sacks and worms (not sure these worms will like their new environment, as they're compost worms and not of the "earth" type).

I haven't got their yet, but once I finish filling up the depth to make 2'x2'x2', I'll do the same again on the top. Ultimately, I'll mulch over with 4" of bark.

The forecast is for days of rain after Tuesday, so I've got to finish this project up by Wed. That probably means I'll be taking a day off work to muck around in the garden. Woe is me. It must be worth it though, right!
-naysen

[z_willus_d]

Dice-

I started out planning to put down 1/2 cup per 2'x2'x2' cube of grow medium, then I took some pH measurements. I measured in three points in the first 24' bed (front, middle, back).

Pic 1 gives the pH of my hose water. Frighteningly high, I'd say, so I'm hoping that maybe the first out of the hose was a bit off or maybe the metal of that water can is having some effect on the measurement. I'll follow up on this later, as I know fluoridated water can be a touch alkaline, but it shouldn't go that high.

Pics 2-4 show the pH before adding lime/alfalfa/coffee-grinds; front-middle-back respectively.

Pic 5-7 show the pH after adding only 1/2 cup of lime (actually 1/4 because this is a 2'x2'x1' half-cube)/alfalfa/no grinds; front-middle-back respectively.

Pics 8-10 show the pH after the coffee grinds were added; front-middle-back respectively.

Edit: In terms of pic numbering, please ignore pic #4, which has a 2nd H2O measurement (different dose of hose water).

As you can see, I'm quite low, no doubt owing to the forest humus and peat. Based on these initial measurements, I decided to throw in another 1/4 cup of lime per unit, to bring the total up to 1cup lime per 2'x2'x2' cube. I haven't taken the pH measurements again after this amendment, but I plan to after I finish up the beds. I want to target the pH for something like 6.35, I believe. Certainly higher than the low-to-mid 5's I'm reading.

That's the pH update for those who care.
-naysen

[dice]

The lime takes months to years to entirely break down in the soil.
What will matter is not what the pH is right now but what it will
be in 6 months, or at the end of the season.

This page has a chart that shows how pH affects nutrient uptake:
http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~blpprt/acid2.html
(It looks like around pH 7.0 would be perfect, except for the iron, which
is probably why pH 6.5 is usually cited as optimum.)

[z_willus_d]

While it seemed I had abandoned my own thread here, I hadn't abandoned it's subject, my beds. Today was a somewhat momentous day in their slow creep to completion. Today I finished installing the waterworks, at least on the largest of the beds. I'm running a closed loop of 3/4" PVC with risers to half-wide 2' radius sprinklers every 2 feet along the run. The PVC will be buried under mulch when all is done.

The pics I've attached pretty much tell the story. I have around 25 heads running on this one large bed. You can see them in action in pics 2/3. You can also see the large 18" cage I'm thinking of using for many of the vines this season. They have extensions to take them higher up to around 7' I believe.

Now I just need the weather to hold and to get my seedlings in to planting order.
-naysen

[salix]

Very nice, Naysen - looking forward to seeing pics later in the season with a bumper harvest for you. Hope the return is commensurate with the time and effort you have put into this project.

[z_willus_d]

Salix-

Thanks for the kind comments. Sharing progress here and receiving encouragement is often my impetus for pushing forward in these projects.
-naysen

[Tracydr]

Are you sure you need the lime? With local water, I bet you have plenty of calcium and magnesium, plus the pH will probably trend up. At least, that's what it does here. Although, you're much more scientific about the whole process than I am.
I have quite a bit of biochemistry background ( Masters in nutrition, Medical Doctor and Animal science undergrad), but I don't really get too scientific about my gardening. I just see what's happening in my gardening and can tell that my water makes the difference. There is no way I'd put lime anywhere near my soil!
Btw, I read everyone of your threads and learn a ton! Yours and Raybos. I don't use Earthtainers but I love what you guys do!

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by z_willus_d

Dice, thanks for responding. I'm not using the lime for pH adjustment so much as for it's other properties. So, are you suggesting 1 cup per plant (and 2'x2'x16" volume) or 1/2 cup?

Unfortunate, the dump-struck guys accidentally mixed up a ?good bit of my sand with the horse manure, which I will not be using. I probably have 3/4 a cubic yard of sand. I think sand might be more risky for aeration, which is why I'm using the Perlite.

I was going to add the Sul-Po-Mag with fertilization later (not in the soil mix now). I'm adding a the alfalfa just to feed the soil to feed the worms more than to feed the plants, but it will add N to my mix, so I'll have to account for that when fertilizing later.

Well, I'm back out to the job again. This is hard work man!

Thanks,
-naysen

Remember, when you add organic stuff like manure and alfalfa, you get a bugger bang for your buck. Also, remember you're not doing a hydroponics or container, so you dont really need to account for everything. The bacterias and organics will produce some of this for you, given the good stuff, like alfalfa and manure.
Make sure you get a soil test, test for things like boron and selenium. Don't overdue things that can build up and not be taken away, like calcium, phosphorous, or anything that raises pH too much. It's very hard to lower your pH.