Questions About Soil

Hi, I'm new to this forum but I joined because I'm needing to find a way to help my garden and build a better soil bed.

My issue is money, I don't want to spend alot of money to have subpar dirt hauled to my place.

Take a look at my video below and please give me some ideas, I'm not sure what else to do other than buy dirt in the bag at Lowes for way too much money!!

If you don't want to watch the whole video, there are links in the description to the garden part of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCY8Rb4kxeI

Cheers,

Wayne, SC

If you don't want to buy soil you need to make it, to make it you use compost. So you need to make a lot of compost, then put it on your soil.

Thanks Chris for the feedback.

I've got a large pile of grass clippings, dead Christmas tree, shrub trimmings, etc...behind my shed. I'm going to put that in below the dirt in my raised garden bed that I'm building.
I'm also getting a couple of barrels to make composers with too.

Maybe I need to hook up this fish pond (see new video below) to a pump to water my garden with too? LOL :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOMPY_njUcM

Cheers,

Wayne, SC

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Originally Posted by Chris

If you don't want to buy soil you need to make it, to make it you use compost. So you need to make a lot of compost, then put it on your soil.

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Another question about soil- how bad are clumps of soil. I didn't do a very good job of de-clumping the soil yesterday when I planted my sugar snap peas and my Brussels sprouts. I put miracle grow into a rectangular 6" by 18" pot. I obviously cannot go back and de-clump my soil for fear of damaging the seeds?

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Originally Posted by Dr, Greenthumb

Another question about soil- how bad are clumps of soil. I didn't do a very good job of de-clumping the soil yesterday when I planted my sugar snap peas and my Brussels sprouts. I put miracle grow into a rectangular 6" by 18" pot. I obviously cannot go back and de-clump my soil for fear of damaging the seeds?

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Hi Dr. Greenthumb,

From my knowledge, it depends on the type of soil you are planting in...however, it would be best to have finely churned up soil with little to no clumps.

That said, you can still go back through and break up the larger clumps up by hand but do it now before they germinate and start to grow sprouts...you wouldn't want to break them off.

I try to till up my garden so fine that it's almost like a powder and the chunks of soil are no larger than 3/4" - 1" across.

Hope This Helps?

Wayne, SC

The best soil would be a loose soil that can clump together but easily breaks apart with very little pressure. The soil should smell nice. But clumpy soil can cause major problems depending on how thick it really is. These clumps will end up becoming dry inside and roots that grow into them may die because of this if the clumps are large enough. But if there just some small clumps you should be fine for the most part a plant here or there while young may die by contacting clumps like this especially when using a fertilizer like miracle grow if it's not dissolved and roots come in contact with the hard crystal granules your roots will most likely begin to have problems and fry the plants.

After your harvest try adding some green sand or perlite to help your soil from clumping in future years which will save you the work of declumping in the first place.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chris

If you don't want to buy soil you need to make it, to make it you use compost. So you need to make a lot of compost, then put it on your soil.

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Make sure you don't use just straight compost it will most likely kill your plants due to all the organic matter in it still breaking down that's why you would add it to your existing soil like Chris mentioned.

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Originally Posted by truelivingorganics

The best soil would be a loose soil that can clump together but easily breaks apart with very little pressure. The soil should smell nice. But clumpy soil can cause major problems depending on how thick it really is. These clumps will end up becoming dry inside and roots that grow into them may die because of this if the clumps are large enough. But if there just some small clumps you should be fine for the most part a plant here or there while young may die by contacting clumps like this especially when using a fertilizer like miracle grow if it's not dissolved and roots come in contact with the hard crystal granules your roots will most likely begin to have problems and fry the plants.

After your harvest try adding some green sand or perlite to help your soil from clumping in future years which will save you the work of declumping in the first place.

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Yes, Yes, Yes....I didn't think about adding perlite! Oh, and Green sand? I've never heard about that....I'll be looking into that this weekend for sure.
I'm really getting the spring fever and itching to get my hands dirty this year....can't wait.

Oh, Look What I found on CraigsList yesterday!!!!! I'm super excited and can't wait to "dig in"! LOL Video Link Below...

BTW, please subscribe, comment, and like my videos if you like what you see....it's helps allot!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP0BjykwsNo

Cheers,

Wayne, SC

Hello All,

I just posted a new video that covers "How to Build A Raised Garden Bed CHEAP" (below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv0GwPeq_6I

I don't know if it will be helpful for anybody else here but if so, please indulge at your leisure.

All the best,

Wayne, SC

Everybody here has been so helpful with helping me get focused on the proper direction I should be looking on "how to" garden here in the south and I'm so grateful!

I've made a new video that is a projects update video and it covers the gardening and seed starts as well as the flower garden and I'd like to get some feedback if at all possible. I need some ideas of things that I should be planting right now and also some thoughts on the seed starts and how to get them to grow better in the first three weeks.

The video link is here, if you don't want to watch all of it I understand, I put links in the description that you can use to "jump to" different parts of the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEPpMBXCrLM

Thanks in advance!

Wayne

Just buy a few sacks, just enough to cover half of your bed, then mix it with compost. They type of soil you need to get also depends on what you’re planting.

Thank You for the reply! Since I posted this thread/question I'm made some significant progress...here's the latest video that explains what I'm doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuWr-4yIYpM

I'm open to any suggestions as I have so much to learn!

God Bless, Wayne SC

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Originally Posted by Bernie_P

Just buy a few sacks, just enough to cover half of your bed, then mix it with compost. They type of soil you need to get also depends on what you’re planting.

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