Hi everyone,
I bought a house a couple years ago and I'm finally thinking about the garden. In the corner of the backyard there is a wooden garden box about 4x8 feet.
The box is horribly littered with weeds, grass, and unidenfied plants of various types. I think my dog and cat have also been using it as their toilet, so it is in no condition to grow vegetables at this point.
I'm wondering what I have to do to start growing some veggies. My guess is that I need to digg out all the soil in there, take it to the dump, and grab some new soil, put it in there, and plant some new seed.
If I'm correct in my assumption, I have a few questions:
1. What type of soil should I put in? I'm pretty new to gardening and don't want to get ripped off buying the wrong kind of soil.
2. How deep do I have to dig to get rid of the bad soil? With a 4x8 box, that could be a lot of soil to take to the dump.
I guess that's it for now. Someone told me that if I plant a potato, that will help with the weed problem, but I think my garden is beyond repair at this point (I may be wrong though).
Thanks a lot!
How deep is the box and how far down from the top of the box is the soil.?
-It's about a foot and a half above the grass, and the soil is only a couple inches lower than the box.
Do you compost?
Yes.
If you are thinking about gardening now, I am assuming that you will be buying your plants. -Yes, or seeds.
-It's about a foot and a half above the grass, and the soil is only a couple inches lower than the box.
Do you compost?
Yes.
If you are thinking about gardening now, I am assuming that you will be buying your plants. -Yes, or seeds.
If you cold compost, I would pull the weeds including the roots and take them to the dump. If you hot compost, I would pull the weeds including the roots and put them in the center of the compost pile. I would then amend the soil with some 10-10-10 fertilizer and mix in with the top 3-4" of soil. At this point, plant your plants and mulch with compost to the top of the box. In the area where you will be planting seeds, I would add another 1/2" of potting soil distribute the seeds and cover at the recommended depth with fine grind vermucilite.
John
John
-
The Helpful Gardener
- Mod
- Posts: 7491
- Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2004 9:17 pm
- Location: Colchester, CT
John, a drowning bucket (covered, no skeeters!) let's you drown those weeds for a while so you can cold compost them, and the "tea" in the bucket is good for watering piles too.
I would likely remove the top three or four inches of soil to remove pet leavings, solarize it (black plastic for two weeeks), then bring in compost and composted manure. I might be tempted to use bokashi or EM to be sure there is no danger of E.coli or fecal coliforms (Effective Microbes are facultative anarobes just like the two I mentioned, and very agressive; this is the stuff they use to eat oil slicks and old paint, so pet poop is no problem...stuff's great in compost).
Should be fine...
HG
I would likely remove the top three or four inches of soil to remove pet leavings, solarize it (black plastic for two weeeks), then bring in compost and composted manure. I might be tempted to use bokashi or EM to be sure there is no danger of E.coli or fecal coliforms (Effective Microbes are facultative anarobes just like the two I mentioned, and very agressive; this is the stuff they use to eat oil slicks and old paint, so pet poop is no problem...stuff's great in compost).
Should be fine...
HG