Deep soil how good is it for a new garden!
I remember about 7 years ago I dough out a area of the lawn for a garage. I went down about 4 feet with a small digger. I piled the top soil and the deeper soil on the hill near my garden! I probably had about 10 pickups loads of soil some clay and some dark ash! Years ago most people burned coal and alot of places threw ashes in the yard! Red dog was another thing found in the pa. soils! I strained most of the dirt and used it in the garden. I am thinking this year of digging a 20 by 20 area in one of my gardens about two foot down and using the underneat dirt for some new cold frames and new gardens to cover lots of weeds! The underneath dirt I will mx with some soil mixes and try to make some greattop soils without many weeds! I did something similar to this before but not as deep! Has anyone used strained red dog as a additive to soil mix? A plow usually turns over the soil about 2 foot deep each year and seems to work but there are loads of weeds. How deep do the weed seeds usually go? Its alot of work to dig that much dirt but I will dig for hours and love it!
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
+++Red dog is a coal ash usually from old mines that have burnt or even some coke ovens! It is abundent in Pa. and many coal minning states. It is very acid but usuall has been cleaned with the rains over the years. My one garden area is on top of many feet of red dog. There is coal ash all over Pa. because of burning of coal over the years! It may be bad or gardens but it is everywhere and seems not to affect what I am growing! Alot of the back roads are cover with red dog! I don't think its very good for growing anything but I mix it with some of the clay soils I have in bad areas but I strain it first. I would say its ok for deep drainage! but it has alo of bad things in it!rainbowgardener wrote:what is red dog?