g'day,

not sure if i can help can be hard to get an idea when you can't actually see the plants.

but does sound like nutrient problems, i wouldn't have suggest weed mat use at all, we have never used it and never had to newspaper has always worked well, if you have created a drainage problem that may not help.

would suggest you maybe give the garden a feed of an organic based fertiliser we ahve organic lifter or dynamic lifter they are granulated fertilisers made from chook poo basically.

we don't as a rule of thumb use any bought in fertilisers as we find our garden beds are fertile enough from our green type hay mulches that we sue and that we recycle all spent vege plants as well as all kitchen scraps into the garden.

we also find that using fresh mushroom compost from the farm makes the best growing medium, when you buy made up stuff you ahve no idea what you are realy getting.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page

Hi,

The store bought composts were cow dung and mushroom. I also watered with a fish emulsion. Thanks for the follow up. I hope to get this problem figured out. Enjoy spring/summer down there! :O).

The fine particles from the compost have likely filtered down and have layered with the sand on top of the weed fabric. This could very easily inhibit the rapid drainage of water from your raised bed. Sand can actually create quite an impermeable layer when very fine particles fill all of the spaces between the grains. The weed fabric could cause the problem, as well.

The sand was play sand. I'm not sure if that would affect it as well.

Neither sand nor gravel nor rocks as an underlying layer will improve drainage. Instead, the opposite occurs; the drainage is inhibited.

I know that sounds backward but it's a matter of soil physics which can be summarized thus:

Water moves downward in soil. When the water hits a change in texture, to either a finer or more coarse material, the downward movement stops until the top layer is saturated. Only then can downward movement again proceed.

So in your bed, you have 4 layers-- that is, 4 different textures. Starting from the top down they are:
1. "soil mixture" which is vermiculite, peat moss, and mixed compost
2. weed fabric
3. sand
4. native clay

First I'd say it doesn't sound like there is enough soil in your soil. I mean, it's all amendments and no soil. The corners may have done better because the roots did get down into a little bit of soil. The mineral component of soil needs to be the major component. Look at this page from wikipedia about soil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil
Look down a bit to the "characteristics" section and the drawing of a cross section of a grade A1 soil. The layers are called horizons. When left to develop (without disking or tilling or turning) these layers develop naturally. If you go into a woods and dig a hole and look at a cross section, it will look just like that. There will be clear distinct layers. There are lots of reasons why these layers develop and healthy soils always have them.
The "O" horizon is organic material like mulch. The "A" horizon in the absolutely most wonderful soil ever is only 3 inches thick. It is part organic mater but mostly the "dirt" part of soil. Seeds can't grow in the "O" horizon, they need to be in the "A" horizon. Then it's mostly mineral soil below that in the "B" and "C" horizons. The "dirt" part of soil is necessary.
And jean001 is right about adding sand. Just consider the contents of concrete (cement, which is like true clay, and sand) and you will get the idea. I believe what happened to your plants is that you created a very deep "O" horizon and the plants simply could not grow in it. There was no real soil.
I know you went to a lot of work but I would recommend that you step back a bit and rethink your approach.
First of all, clay soils are harder to work than loam or sandy soil, but not impossible. I'd start with trying to work with your native soil. Is it really pure clay? or is it clay loam or something not quite as bad as rock-hard, impenetrable, almost stone like clay? What grows native there? Trees and brush and weeds? If so, then your garden will grow too.
I recommend you look at some of the threads on "lasagna" gardening. That is the new name for it. I always called it sheet mulching or mulch bed gardening. An old classic book that is very fun to read and has great information is "No Work Gardening" by Ruth Stout. She really has a way with words and really has it right on how to garden. Also, many of the new "lasagna" gardeners are doing a lot like you did and making raised beds, adding lots of stuff. A lot of that is not necessary. Just keep it simple. Ruth's book is wonderful about stressing that. Simple, and less work too!
The short version is that you start with cleared native soil. Do not till or tractor it. Put a huge thick layer of mulch on it. No block or mounded or raised or any of that. Just put the mulch in wide rows. The mulch it's self makes the bed. Leave paths to walk in. You will be very surprised what the soil under that mulch will look like by spring. Once things warm up for planting time, just pull back enough mulch to get down to the soil, to make room for your seeds, and plant.
It's so simple and it simply works.

Your plant problems were more nutrient related than drainage related, they simply could not get enough of what they needed to grow like they should have.

Keep experimenting as you will likely find as many answers for yourself as you will get from people on a forum.

I will agree that your problem does sound more nutrient related than drainage related. With such a soil-less media to grow in your plants were probably struggling to get the nutrients they needed and the good growth you saw may have been plants that got their roots down to the clay which does tend to hold nutrients well. (getting the weed fabric out of there might make a world of difference.)

Perhaps some of the nutrient problem could have been due to the soil-less media being shy of soil microbes to transform different forms of nitrogen into plant usable nitrate nitrogen. If the compost was sterilized this is even more likely. Time does put more of those soil microbes into the planting bed and some more home made compost should help for next season. Other ideas that can help build up a microherd for you include compost tea, worm castings, and worm tea.

Find yourself some info on what different nutrient deficiency's look like so you can tell what the problem is next season. Then plan on doing some foliar feeding and gentle fertilizing if you see the problems again. Definitely go on the light side though as it is very easy to overdo and too much of something is often even worse than too little. Never use a fertilizer stronger than instructions say as you could burn your plants up.

Good luck

Sounds like it could be a combination of nutrient deficiency and overwatering.

One more thought: what about adequate sun. You said that the peppers grown in the same mix did well. I admit that I know next to nothing of square foot gardening, but the little I know sounds like a lot of plants in a small space. This can cause not only competetion for nutrients but also blocking of sun to some plants.

Just a thought.

Karen

On the other side of things, in the hot South, there are some plants that will do better with a touch of shade. I've found that in the hot season some plants that normally want full sun actually seem to do better here with a touch of shade for a part of the day.

I'd have to say jean001 hit it on the head. The varying textures held water too long and, although maybe not waterlogged, the lack of oxygen stunted the plants.

tj

Thanks for all the advice everyone! :O). I've learned so much on this thread, especially the whole movement of water between layers and saturation. The plants in the box also dropped bottom leaves. So, they were stunted, yellowed and dropped bottom leaves. The roots weren't rotted, however. I read that this could be because of poor drainage or nitrogen deficiency. I'm sure it should be a bit of both. The soil mix is 33% mixed compost (cow dung & mushroom (so, inferior quality) [bix box retailers ;-(]. Newbie garden fever hit me near the middle of summer. It's also 33% agricultural grade vermiculite and 33% peat moss (not too environmentally great). I don't believe that the mixture will freeze too much in the upcoming cool weather. I will try to move it around and do some drainage experiments. I also may send it to the University/Extension Office for testing. The lasagna technique seems interesting. :O). I don't believe my soil is pure clay. It must be some loam. I previously posted this thread along with an attempt at a photo of the place of land prepared for the box but they didn't upload successfully. Pine trees, weeds (dandelions), small "wild strawberries" grow in the area, etc. I didn't crowd the plants. The small bell pepper transplants had one
12X12 (inch) square each. They were placed in the center. Thanks for all of your generous help and expertise.

If 1/3 of the mix was cow dung/mushroom compost you probably had enough nitrogen. Keep in mind a nitrogen deficency doesn't neccessarily mean nitrogen isn't there, it just can't be taken up by the plant. Hence the stunting and yellowed leaves (also a sign of too much water).

tj

Yellowing leaves can also be an indication of a lack of iron. It can often happen in high pH environments even when there is plenty of iron in the soil, because the high pH makes the iron unavailable.

My understanding is that mushroom compost tends to have high pH, so maybe that could be part of your problem. Are the leaves uniformly yellow or do they have green veins?

It was said:
"My understanding is that mushroom compost tends to have high pH,"

Many folks believe that to be true. But the pH is typically about 6.8 to 6.9 -- just below neutral.

Jean--I have no direct experience with mushroom compost, but any time I search, what I read says it's high pH.

Can you provide me with some links supporting your claim that it is slightly acidic? As far as I know, I can't get it anywhere near here, so my interest is strictly academic.

Here are a couple of links saying it's alkaline:
Cornell
Peter Mushroom

There were others, but I figure anybody can use a search engine so I'm only including a couple. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I wasn't able to find any results that said mushroom compost had a pH lower than 7.

The optimal soil pH range is between 6.2 and 6.8 for most plants and the pH range of Mushroom compost is around 7.0 and while on the logrithmic scale each change in number is 10 times greater than the previous there is not that much difference between what is optimal and what Mushroom compost is. A pH of 7.0 is neutral, neither alkaline or acid so something with a pH of 7.0 is not going to harm plant growth at all.

The ph and complete composition of mushroom compost is going to depend on what the mushroom growers use to make their compost and what they add to it. This will likely vary depending on what type of mushrooms are being grown. The mushroom farm where I get my compost uses gypsum for added calcium so I don't expect that the pH of mine is exceptionally high.

The soil the OP has sounds like it is at least on the slightly acidic side (strawberrys mentioned.) And another component of the raised bed mix is peat so I doubt the problems in the raised bed are due to High pH.

The manure/Mushroom compost mix may have a fair amount of nitrogen but if it was sterilized before being sold, then it may not have the necessary microbes in it to make the nitrogen available to the plants.

Softmentor, your lengthy post about how plants and seeds can't grow in the non mineral soil media, I can't agree with. I have grown plants hydroponically and Therefore know that soil is not necessary. That said, most of my gardening is outside on the ground, the larger deeper rooted plants I'm sure reach the native soil, but a huge number of my plants are actually growing in deep layers of mulch and compost. I've found seedlings sprouting in 4' deep piles of wood chips before so saying that "Seeds can't grow in the "O" horizon, they need to be in the "A" horizon" just doesn't jive with what I have observed in my gardening nor in nature.

Some seeds/plants may need the mineral soil more than others but most any plant you can grow in a container with a potting mix can grow without mineral soil provided it gets fertilized with what it needs.

the ph if it is a bother of mushroom compost has never affected our gardening in a negative way, it has done us well so much so it is our preffered starting medium and topping up medium.

heard lots of negatives about mushroom compost but never seen any of them occur.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page

Sounds like you need a soil test done. Does your local extension do them?

bpgreen asked: "Jean--I have no direct experience with mushroom compost, but any time I search, what I read says it's high pH."

Hereabouts, the bulk suppliers of soil, amendments and the like say that their mushroom compost is pH 6.8.

As has been said, pH may depend upon the source.

>

This stuff is way to rich. It's like a steady diet of chocolate. Use a layer of it as mulch on top of the soil, but plant your seeds in the soil.

Using << and >> as quotes doesn't work very well unless you use the html escape codes. They're stripped out as invalid tags.

Here's the text softmentor intended to quote:

"The soil mix is 33% mixed compost (cow dung & mushroom (so, inferior quality) [bix box retailers ;-(]. Newbie garden fever hit me near the middle of summer. It's also 33% agricultural grade vermiculite and 33% peat moss (not too environmentally great)"

I live in Georgia as well, and have mostly clay soil. At first I tried to dig in it, then gave up:0 Then I started digging the soil out of the beds and replacing totally with garden soil.

What happens is that when it rains, the 'good' soil will wash away and you will be left with the clay. It's best to work with the clay and incorporate it into your soil along with amendments. Clay has a lot of nutrients in it and will retain water so you don't have to water as much.

You will need to keep the clay well mulched so it will be soft enough to work with. Even in the middle of this drought, my clay bed that was well mulched was moist and easy to work with.

Thanks bpgreen, I'll remember that. And thanks for helping with the quote.

Buford, there ya' go! There's a lot worse things than clay.

This was my first year gardening as well. In Northern Virginia, we also have clay soil. I also did a square foot garden, following the Mel's mix formula. I also laid the weed fabric. Our garden was very productive. From your description, the only two differences in our setups may have been:
1) I used multiple sources of commercial compost as per Mel's recommendations.
2) I did not lay down a layer of sand. I checked drainage and determined that it is fine.

I also discovered that it is helpful to read the companion planting guides. Beets I grew next to beans were stunted. Since SFG crams everything together, incompatibility between plants becomes more important.

I never did discover why my radishes (growing by themselves in a corner) were stunted, but spinach growing in the same location was fine. (I did add more compost prior to planting the spinach, so maybe that was it.) Winter radishes were fine everywhere except next to beans.

Next year, I want to try to pull the weed block. I want worms to be able to enter from below.

By all means get your soil tested. It's one way to determine whether it is in fact lack of nutrient. And your extension agent should be able to help you with these questions as well. The sand may in fact be inhibiting drainage as mentioned above. You might want to consider doing lasanga beds in conjunction with your square foot gardening. It will help enrich the soil and encourage beneficals, especially worms which will help with that nasty ol clay.