Going to ground, any advice/input appreciated

[Kerathome]

Hello Friends!

This is my first year gardening. I started with tomatoes, Cukes, sweet potatoes and peppers in 2 large raised beds. In hindsight, it would have been better to do the tomatoes, Cukes and sweet potatoes in rows on the ground, but anyway...

I have limited sun on my lot. In fact, the only other spot that gets 6 hours of sun is our patio, and my husband isn't in love with tearing down oak trees to give me more sun. So, after doing the raised bed thing and hoping that we get a decent harvest from some of the maters and peppers, I'm getting the urge to put some broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and cabbage in the ground for a fall garden. I'm going to start all my seeds inside since it is still fairly stifling here in Upstate SC (zone 7), and my husband has promised to get the ground ready here by the time my seedlings are ready to go.

So, my question to you wonderful people, knowing what I want to grow, and understanding this spot is the only place I get 6 hours of sun on the ground... what should I ask my husband to do to this ground if I want to have 3 rows? My father in law has a tiller we can borrow, but is there anything else special we need to do to treat the ground? I don't have a lot of money to spend, so is it even worth trying?

[Kerathome]

Also, to add - I realize the basics. We need to remove weeds (is there a good way to do this besides pulling them by hand? There are so many, lol), then we need to edge the beds, rototiller the inside of the bed, mix in fertilizer and add top soil...

But is there anything else that is an absolute requirement? Is it necessary to get soil tested, etc?

[applestar]

If you have a lot of trees, tree roots might be a problem. You don't want to damage them by roto tilling -- you in fact may not be able to -- and they will steal all the nutrients and water, not to mention casting shade. If you get 6 hours now, you may not get as much later and earlier in spring when the sun angle is lower and days are shorter.

You may actually have the right idea with the deep/high raised beds. So you may want to evaluate that again.

When I make a new bed, I prefer to (cardboard and) sheet mulch rather than till. This means I don't pull weeds and don't scrape up grass. I trench around and between the beds, scraping up topsoil down to the clay subsoil. Sod is turned over to line the bottom of the bed, scraped up top soil get piled up in the bed so the beds are raised mounds with water catchment swale/paths.

Woody mulch in the swale paths to control clay mud, paper and loose mulch the beds.

As prep, I usually loosen the ground garden fork deep without digging, then and add dolomitic lime (the clay subsoil here is acidic), rock phosphate, and unfinished compost to introduce good microbes and (invite) earthworms before piling on the sod and trimmed weeds, grass, etc.

[Kerathome]

Thanks, Applestar- that gives me a good idea of what to do. It's funny, I used to love all this shade until I decided I needed a vegetable garden. Once I started tracking the sun, I was sad to see how little of it we get.

[ButterflyLady29]

You could always try growing vegetables in containers. Yes the initial costs are much higher (pots, bagged potting mix, fertilizers) but the pots will last for years and you can add organic fertilizers, compost, or other materials to replenish the nutrients. If the plants are in containers you won't have problems with tree roots stealing all the water and nutrients. And you can grow most crops in containers, if the containers are large enough. You can even use plastic wading pools for raised beds, just punch some drainage holes in the bottom and line with weed barrier or cardboard. One of the advantages of containers is that if there are no crops in the container you can easily cover it to keep out excess precipitation.

I've got plenty of room for in-ground gardening but I still raise crops in containers. This year I had a good crop of peas, lettuce, green onions, kale, and now purple podded pole beans. I would have had a nice strawberry harvest but either birds or chipmunks are getting them before they are ripe. I'll be building a protective cage once this heat wave breaks.

[jal_ut]

I am going to say: Till up a spot and plant. Don't worry about tree roots. You are not going to hurt your trees. You will soon know if plants will do well there.