went to lowes and showed the gardener there the photos. she told us they were getting too much water and thats why they were getting fungus at the bottom. moved the plants to another bed with lesser water through the day and they seem to be fine. now, coming back to my vegetable bed, how do i get it to drain better. while making it i put in a layer of industrial fabric, 1-2 inches of organic peat humus and then 2-3 inches of a mix of top soil and organic peat humus. the gardener said that the peat humus at the bottom must be retaining too much water

Great suggestions! Thanks so much!! The lawn will definitely need lots of "love" but my main concern is definitely organic matter to prepare the planting beds. I'm trying to remind myself to start small and have completely prepared beds rather than have a finished design in my heart and have everything die. We're about 15 minutes from the coast of Delaware Bay... and 1/2 hr from Lewes & Rehoboth Beach areas... not alot of seaweed (unless there's a certain time of year that it happens). One big agricultural "business" here is chicken farming! I've got a lead on chicken manure but don't want to do it yet. How long should a pile age before it's mixed into a new planting bed? It seems that everyone mulches in their grass clippings... but I'll keep my eyes open in the neighborhood... that's exactly what I need to get a compost pile going! Fresh grass on top always looks better than a nasty pile of newspapers & kitchen scraps, but it's going to be a few months before the grass is ready for mowing! We don't really have any leaves in our new neighborhood. Should I shred the newspapers? I'm a couponer and have quite the pile of newspapers that I put into the recycling bin every week. (I haven't wanted to make an "ugly spot" in the back of the yard.) I definitely have some gardenweb research to do this week! :) Watermelon sounds like fun to try!! I'm assuming that the right amount of compost & organic matter would help tremendously in growing some awesome peppers & tomatoes! (Keep reminding myself.. small scale until I know what will grow!) I wonder how carrots would do? In the sand? So much better than PA rocks!

Putting raised beds over the septic system drain field can change how that drain field works enough so the life of the field will be shortened requiring repair and maybe replacement. It is not a good idea to put anything excpet grass over a septic system drain filed. What I found with putting raised beds over sand that drains really well is that the raised bed will drain even better, you will have difficulty keeping adequate levels of moisture in the soil in those raised beds. "Topsoil" is defined as the top 4 to 6 inches of soil. "Topsoil" can be anything so you need to know what you are looking for before you spend any money on something called "topsoil". What I find, when I can find out what someone thinks "topsoil" is, is that people think "topsoil" is loam and it is not. The same with "garden soil" which is another meaningless term. If you need additional soil, and need to but some look for something that has at least 5 percent organic matter in it and then plan on adding more organic matter to that. How many cubic yards of soil you need is calculated by multipying Length by Width by Depth (in the same value as the first two numbers) which if in feet gives you cubic feet and needs to be divided by 27 to get cubic yards.

How deep is the clay layer? If not too deep/thick, seems worth while to incorporate OM into the clay and then OM added to the sand, will increase porosity and prevent clay from stopping drainage. I've learned that anything involving clay soils is a multi-year 'adventure'. But the pay-off is great soil! Perhaps improving one section at a time will take the curse off of the work involved, invite 'nature' in as a partner. The 'unimproved' section can be seeded with a plant with deep roots to mine the clay and make OM to dig into the soil. Alfalfa is said to have deep/wide root systems, and it is attractive.