dmarie17 said:

Stone - You've convinced me and I've convinced the hubs! We are going to carve away some useless turf for a veggie bed!! Not going to attempt to grow anything this year, as we will probably get snow in the next 6 weeks but the beds will go in and next year, it's on!!

I have read some but not all of the posts here so if I am repeating, ignore it.
Where I am now I had a lawn like yours and decided to put a garden in; one thing you can do if the sod can be reused, get a powered sod cutter and rather than turn it over, cut if off and reuse it.
I did this, although I cut my sod by had which I DO NOT recommend or if that costs too much or you have no place to put it, turn the sod over by hand with a shovel.
Now this is hard work but if you do so , turning the grass clumps so the dirt covers them, the soil will be much easier to roto-till in the spring and you have gained from the rotting grass.

If I can beat the frost I still turn over both of my gardens by hand and it makes working it in spring much easier as the frozen chunks break apart much easier than tilling flat soil.

I know lens distorts perspective but from your first photo, depending on how much you want to put in, I would go, from the corner two or three fence posts to the left and then five to six fence posts toward the camers.

Potatoes like fresh soil, so if you like potatoes , next year would be the best year to try some.

Just my two cents.
Turn that over before frost, fertiliize with granular fertilizer or manure if you can get some and let it sit till spring.

We moved here 25 years ago and there were no gardens at all, but now we have 30 of them. If we had begun the transformation trying to do everything at once, it would have been far more than we could have handled. I'm so glad we did one at a time, so my advice would be to go slow and don't try for your paradise in one year.

I bought some bulbs! Then I realized I had no idea how many bulbs I needed or how far they go. Here is what i thought was pretty:
Alium Gladiator & Mount Everest - 3 of each
Alium Drumsticks - 25
Hyacinths - yellow - 5
Hyacinths - pink - 5

Hmm.. It seemed like a lot more when I was ordering

When digging this weekend, it appears that we need dirt to fill in some of the beds. Can I just go and buy bags from Home Depot or is there a trick to this? Also, someone mentioned organic matter for the vegetable gardens. Same question. Where does one buy organic matter. Sorry, I'm so clueless

Congrats Dawn!

Make sure you plant the hyacinths where you can smell them on the breeze. Besides, you can always (and you will) add more next year.

Dawn - The Gladiator and Mt. Everest Alliums are beautiful planted together I LOVE alliums and pop them in all over the place for something different. Good choices

For organic matter, I buy yellow-and-white bags marked "manure - compost". That's because I can't collect enough leaves or coffee grounds to make my own compost. Also, the park management has been hassling me about my "heap".

Those who garden organically have many things they use, but most of those look too expensive for me, or I've never seen them on sale (like alfalfa pellets). Fish emulsion and bone meal are the only two that come to mind right now as having lots of organic matter.

By far the best way to get lots of organic matter is to collect dead leaves, lawn clippings, kitchen waste, paper and coffee grounds. And anything else organic. You can use most such things as mulch, which protects soil, roots and plants in many ways. Then, after a few seasons or a few years, it turns into organic matter and becomes food for soil life, then slow-release-fertilizer for your plants.

Many people have a list of things they won't compost, but mostly they are trying to avoid attracting pests to their compost heap. Fats, meat and dairy are said to attract vermin more than "just veggies".

Never add diseased plants to your compost heap! That's like deliberately injecting future plants with more disease spores than necessary.

If you're smart, you won't add weeds that have gone to seed to a compost heap. I dared to defy that rule one year, and I'm still regretting it 3 years later. I think there are some weeds whose roots will come back to life if composted: ?? Bermuda Grass ??

If you don't want to "get into" composting yet, then buy bark mulch and spread it on top of the soil. Mulch is always helpful, and it is like slow-release organic matter, a long-term improver of garden soil.

Buy something like "manure" or "compost" depending on what is inexpensive in your region. Those can be turned under the soil, if you choose a path that involves digging or tilling your new beds.

One caution about wood products like wood chips or sawdust (or paper). These are all great for top-dress MULCH. Be wary about turning wood or sawdust or too much paper into your garden's root zone. Wood is "all-brown" in composting terms. It has a lot of carbon, and VERY little nitrogen. Microbes love to eat wood. If it is chopped fine before you turn it under, they can absorb and digest it VERY fast. However, those soil microbes also consume nitrogen as they eat carbon.

Feeding the soil with sawdust or paper is like giving the soil microbes cocaine. They grow and multiply very fast, and they suck EVERY milligram of nitrogen right OUT of the soil and into their tiny bodies. That leaves none for YOUR plants!

That cycle is called "creating a nitrogen deficit" and it means that for the next year or two, you might be trowing a fine crop of soil fat, happy soil microbes, but your plants will grow like their roots are in glass marbles and distilled water: they won't grow much at all. AFTER the soil microbes have eaten all the excess carbon, soil nitrogen begins to be able to accumulate and you can grow plants again.

So don't do what I did five or so years ago: looking for a long-lasting chunky soil amendment, I tried buying some cheap (but BAD) soil amendment called something like "Soil Pep". It was mostly sawdust and small wood chips. I put a lot of it into one bed. That bed was good-for-nothing for over one year, almost two. When I dug down into the soil, it was UGLY with some thready, dusty-looking fungus that was feasting on the wood and starving everything larger than a fungal thread.

I hope you find some good introductory books or articles - I think there are more introductory tips than we can think of off the top of our heads. I liked "The Complete Book of Garden Magic" (Roy Edwin Biles) because the first edition was written in 1947, and then updated with "the latest modern theories and practices" in the 1950s or 1960s.

Writers today will talk about the way THEY start seeds, and leave the impression that those are the ONLY ways. Well, no.

It was done very differently 60 years ago, and without any gadget-y plastic trays or films. They, too, had concerns about agricultural chemicals, and urged some precautions when spraying things like arsenic around!

When you see how different "the way to garden" was just a few decades ago, you'll realize that no matter how doctrinaire someone on the Internet sounds, there are MANY other ways to get the job done. Following GOOD advice can save you from disappointments, but if you never try things contrary to "popular wisdom", you might never discover a method that is satisfying to you, and meets YOUR needs, but did not show up in someone's online blog.

I'm really proud that, once, on another website, someone was asking about how to start seeds indoors successfully. I had a momentary flash of insight and honesty, and admitted that I wasn't sure what a "right" way might be, but I was something of an expert on things that could be done WRONG when starting seeds. I came up with dozens of things that are pretty likely to kill your seeds in massive numbers. merely by avoiding MY mistakes, that person had great success the very first time she started seeds indoors! (Maybe she was just naturally good at making seeds LIVE, but I like to think that I had already tried and perfected MOST of the ways to make lots of seeds die unintentionally!

>> Can I just go and buy bags from Home Depot

My Home Depot has a lot of junk in their garden section, and are no cheaper than my Lowes, which mostly has good quality amendments. But that could be the exact opposite where you live.

If you can find a "dirt yard" near you, they may sell better "topsoil" by the cubic yard than what HD has in bags as "garden soil". But it is a gamble. "Dirt yards" will also sell mixes like "three-way" (topsoil, compost and something for drainage).

My rule of thumb is that any soil I buy or make needs more drainage than it started with, and more compost than I can afford. (I've always lived where "soil" means "clay".) I add a lot of bark shreds (fine mulch, screened and chopped up), grit or crushed rock, and some sand. Coir if I'm sure it's not salty. I add as much compost as I can get my hands on. A soil mix that is 50% compost is not too rich when starting a bed! It will subside as the compost (organic matter) is digested, but that's OK.

Rick you never cease to make me laugh Dawn - my sister lives in Carol Stream IL and I planted her front entry. We used composted manure for the organic matter and top dressed her beds with about 3" of shredded hardwood mulch. We cut a clean edge with a half moon manual edger and mulched to the edge of the grass. She has been very happy with the results and the plants seem to be happy. (at least what she didn't manage to kill from over watering ) Read the instructions on the manure if you use it so you don't add too much and burn your plants (remember what Rick said about learning from his mistakes - guess that works for more than just him!)

Thank you, Ginny!

Great advice Rick.

Thank you for the acorn!

Talking about compost is a little like (on most online forums) talking about gun control, birth control, or politics! You know, contentious.

I saw most of a forum abandon the forum once (in DG) when "someone" was insufficiently respectful to The Revealed Truth About Compost As Preached By Their Compost Guru (TM).

I tried to make it clear that I agreed with 97% to 98% of what he was saying, but that was not good enough. They didn't even try to cast the heretic out, they just took their bat and ball and went home (somewhere).

Sorry, guys! Now I try to never disagree with anything that anyone says about compost. At most I'll say that there are other ways, too.

In fact, there is almost NOthing that you can do to keep organic matter from turning into compost. Maybe freezing it, or dehydrating it to bone-dryness, would slow it down enough to say that it is not composting. The only way you can NOT make compost is to not bring home any compost makings.

[quote="RickCorey"]

I tried to make it clear that I agreed with 97% to 98% of what he was saying, but that was not good enough. They didn't even try to cast the heretic out, they just took their bat and ball and went home (somewhere).


That's called making a group decision after a private huddle.

Let's not do that, OK?

HI Dawn:

You are going to have such a blast creating your own particular style, in your yard. I would go to the Soil and compost forum and just start reading and learning. You don't have to amend every square inch of your beds right away, but you really should have some good compost and good stuff on hand so you can dig nice big holes with lots of good amendments for any plants you do put in, this year.

When you amend your soil, you make your life so much easier. Your plants will be healthier and grow like you have been gardening for years, and your back will thank you because amended soil shovels with ease, It is just the kindest thing you can do for yourself, and for your plants. I use to spend as much on the sH&t that I put in the holes for new plants as I did for the plants themselves. The biggest mistake I made when I was putting in my first landscape was I planted things too close together, wanting that finished look right away. The next year I was digging things up as plants are prone to disease when they are crowded.

Drive around neighborhoods you like for inspiration , and take pics of anything that appeals to you. Go to some public gardens in your area, and just get a feel for the plants you love. You can post pics of them here to learn the name of the plants you love, and get the best tips on growing them. You have that amazing fence, so consider it part of your canvas, maybe an annual vine or two, annual vines won't come back the following year, so you are not committed to something you may find you don't like. Be mindful of the term invasive, or seeds easily, when you buy plants. I have fallen in love with invasive plants only to find they are my worst weed in a few years.

Consider your plantings as compositions, as if your drawing a picture. or arranging your living room. Utilize that lovely fence for some vertical interest. You can start with annual vines, because if you don't like them they are not permanent, and they are not hard on a wood fence.

As summer winds down, garden supplies go on sale, so get a good hose, that won't cinch. A scuffle hoe is great for weeding, a good shovel, (I love the ladies shovels) and some good gloves are a must.
I buy latex tight fitting gloves, at a drug store; to wear under my garden gloves, to keep my nails from becoming too disgusting.

Gardening is never done. Every year there will be weeding, fertilizing, pruning, etc. It is always a work in progress, year in and year out, and none of us will ever stop making mistakes from time to time. They really are a necessary part of becoming wise in the garden.

Welcome!!!

lauriebasler said: ... I use to spend as much on the sH&t that I put in the holes for new plants as I did for the plants themselves. ...
Drive around neighborhoods you like for inspiration , and take pics of anything that appeals to you. Go to some public gardens in your area, and just get a feel for the plants you love. You can post pics of them here to learn the name of the plants you love, and get the best tips on growing them. ...

Be mindful of the term invasive, or seeds easily, when you buy plants. I have fallen in love with invasive plants only to find they are my worst weed in a few years.
...
Gardening is never done. Every year there will be weeding, fertilizing, pruning, etc. It is always a work in progress, year in and year out, and none of us will ever stop making mistakes from time to time. They really are a necessary part of becoming wise in the garden.

Welcome!!!

All great advice! Especially:
"I use to spend as much on the sH&t that I put in the holes for new plants as I did for the plants themselves."

That's been very true for so long that the first version of it that I heard was something like: "Don't put a 25-cent plant in a 5-cent hole!"

Probably the first or second hunter-gatherer that wished the good food grew closer to her camp figured that one out!

For the vegetable gardeners here - first year for mine and I have clay soil that my husband tilled then added black dirt to it. If I add composted manure and coffee grounds this Fall should I be ready to go in the Spring?

Legalily said:For the vegetable gardeners here - first year for mine and I have clay soil that my husband tilled then added black dirt to it. If I add composted manure and coffee grounds this Fall should I be ready to go in the Spring?

I always say the more compost the better. I know when I plant my tomato plants in pure compost they thrive. Take off and grow into big plants with lots of fruits!!

Ginny, that sounds very good to me. Breaking up the soil at least once, diluting the clay with better soil, and adding compost or manure in Fall for Spring crops: all excellent things!

If you had grass clippings or coffee grounds, those would add nitrogen to your clay. If you keep adding compost, pretty soon you can call it "soil" instead of "clay"! I get more satisfaction out of cultivating the soil than I do raising food or flowers.

(You could add more manure or compost in the spring, but not RAW manure. Better to compost it this winter, then add some in spring.)

Is there an easy way to cover the bed, to discourage weeds? Maybe big tarps? Leaves, or bark mulch? A layer of corrugated cardboard works fine, if it doesn't blow away. Covering the soil will save you a lot of weeding in the Spring (and/or make the weeding go easier). The usual thing is to add mulch to pamper your crops or flowers. Then it is already in place to suppress weeds all fall and winter. However, you're starting from scratch.


It is hard to tell slight changes in soil height or "grade" from a photo, so let me try to say it with words:
- is the bed in a "low spot" in the yard?
- is there higher ground above the bed, so that rain might run off that high spot and into your bed?
- if you were 50 gallons of water that had just flowed INTO your bed, and sunk to the deepest part of the bed that your husband tilled, would you have a path available to continue flowing down and OUT of the bed?

IF your soil doesn't drain well, AND you have hard rains, that might become a drainage/aeration problem. But don't worry if you're not sure: many clay soils WILL "perk" or drain fast enough to "let the water out" of a bed. That's where the Earth has an advantage over pots: the entire planet acts as an absorbent wick protecting your plants' roots from drowning, as long as your clay DOES allow enough drainage to drain away most of a hard rainfall within an hour or less.

I tend to fixate on POTENTIAL drainage problems. Better to just not worry about it unless you DO turn out to have a drainage problem.

RickCorey said:Ginny, that sounds very good to me. Breaking up the soil at least once, diluting the clay with better soil, and adding compost or manure in Fall for Spring crops: all excellent things!

If you had grass clippings or coffee grounds, those would add nitrogen to your clay. If you keep adding compost, pretty soon you can call it "soil" instead of "clay"! I get more satisfaction out of cultivating the soil than I do raising food or flowers.

(You could add more manure or compost in the spring, but not RAW manure. Better to compost it this winter, then add some in spring.)

Is there an easy way to cover the bed, to discourage weeds? Maybe big tarps? Leaves, or bark mulch? A layer of corrugated cardboard works fine, if it doesn't blow away. Covering the soil will save you a lot of weeding in the Spring (and/or make the weeding go easier). The usual thing is to add mulch to pamper your crops or flowers. Then it is already in place to suppress weeds all fall and winter. However, you're starting from scratch.


It is hard to tell slight changes in soil height or "grade" from a photo, so let me try to say it with words:
- is the bed in a "low spot" in the yard?
- is there higher ground above the bed, so that rain might run off that high spot and into your bed?
- if you were 50 gallons of water that had just flowed INTO your bed, and sunk to the deepest part of the bed that your husband tilled, would you have a path available to continue flowing down and OUT of the bed?

IF your soil doesn't drain well, AND you have hard rains, that might become a drainage/aeration problem. But don't worry if you're not sure: many clay soils WILL "perk" or drain fast enough to "let the water out" of a bed. That's where the Earth has an advantage over pots: the entire planet acts as an absorbent wick protecting your plants' roots from drowning, as long as your clay DOES allow enough drainage to drain away most of a hard rainfall within an hour or less.

I tend to fixate on POTENTIAL drainage problems. Better to just not worry about it unless you DO turn out to have a drainage problem.

OK Rick you need to understand a few things:
First, when I say "composted manure" it comes in a bag from the store and I have no raw unless the dog counts
Second thing, I'm starting with a "small" garden on the back of a flower bed I am creating so I can pull the weeds with no problem and we have enough wind at our house (top of a hill in between the timber and fields) that it would blow anything we put out to kingdom come (sometimes I feel the house is going with it ) so no barrier unless we hold it down with boulders . Pulling weeds is therapeutic I would have grass clippings if I rake where my husband mows when he has waited too long and put it on, but he uses weed killer and I don't think that would be a good mix - correct? I'm thinking adding the composted manure and coffee ground (pending the local coffee shop giving me some) now, and then again in the Spring, unless that would be too much manure and would burn anything. My friend has milk cows but it was too darn hard to shovel a full truck load of composed manure off the back of her pickup last time so I'm thinking I probably won't do that again , although we had some great laughs and it was definitely an experience! That's a whole other story!!!
The bed will be on the middle of a slight incline (ok more of a small hill) so drainage should be good. It might actually be over where the sand field starts for our septic system, but not real sure on that one. I haven't seen water actually sitting there (except this last week with all of the rain it just won't dry out I'm considering an extension cord and a fan blowing on it if it doesn't stop!)
The perennials in the rest of the yard where I have amended with composted manure (or other organic "bagged" compost) seem to be doing quite well. (The actually composted cow manure from the friend is like liquid gold!!!)
I was also going to add peat moss to the flower garden - is that ok with clay and should I add it to the veggie garden? You are so good with soil amendments I really respect your opinion!

Rick, if you go here The thread "I Moved And Started All Over With My Garden - Progression!" in Garden Photos forum you will see my yard and on one of the later feeds from August 22 of mine, you will see where I am talking about. Everything from the middle garden hose to the bottom of the area (2nd hose) is going to be veggies, and above that toward the house will be a split rail fence with the flower garden. That might give you a better idea.