Welcome Amanda

Great way to start.. with a soil sample. While at the OSU extension center go in to the Master Gardeners Office, and grill the folks there. They are VERY helpful, and can give you some fact sheets with more info.

Here is their website:

Oh, tell them Moni says "hi". :) I moved away from there last July, and right now, my picture is still on the wall. :)

Moni

Here is a link that might be useful: Tulsa Master Gardeners Website

Amanda,

I think it is great you are ready to start growing your own plants from seed.

With the tomatoes, the top of the refrigerator is recommended because it will supply bottom heat that will encourage the seeds to sprout a little more quickly. As soon as you have sprouts, though, you need to get the small plants underneath bright lights. You can use plain old fluorescent lights but the lights need to be so close to the plants that they practically touch them. Otherwise, the plants will get leggy (too much of a thin, weak stem in comparison to little foliage) and will fall over and probably die. Unless you have a southfacing window that gets a whole lot of direct sunlight, it is almost impossible to raise good tomato seedlings indoors without lights.

Flower seeds are not as easy as the seed packets would have you believe. Success will depend on which seeds you are starting, so you'll need to do your research very carefully and be patient. Expect some successes and also some failures.

Some seeds are very tiny and many of them should be sown on the surface of the soil and just very lightly pressed into the soil surface. Verbena bonariensis is one example of this type.

Some seeds need exposure to light to germinate so also should be surface sown. One example? Poppies.

Some seeds need darkness and need to be planted anywhere from 1/4" to an inch or so deep in the soil. Many annual flower seeds like marigolds, nasturtiums and calendulas fall into this category

Some seeds need to be cold-stratified, which means they need to be exposed to a certain number of hours/days/weeks of cold weather before they'll germinate. With these seeds, you have better sucess from a fall sowing or a late winter sowing or by winter-sowing in containers. Seeds that germinate more easily if cold-stratified include Texas bluebonnets, purple coneflowers and kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate.

Some seeds have a very hard outer shell and you'll get better germination if you use a small paring knife to just barely nick that outer layer and then soak the seeds in water overnight before planting. Morning glories and moonflower vines are in this category.

Some seeds are easy and sprout just fine with minimal effort on your part--zinnias, marigolds, globe amaranth, celosia, and sunflowers are just a few examples of easy ones.

Some seeds sprout teensy, weensy, tiny plants that will not get large enough to bloom for 12-20 weeks or more. Most petunias and begonias fall in this category.

Some plants are biennials, and you won't get flowers until their second year. With some of them, you can plant in early autumn and get plants that overwinter and bloom the following year. With others, you won't see flowers until the second full year. Delphiniums and foxgloves (well, most foxgloves) are examples of biennials.

Some perennials grow just fine from seed, but often they do not get large enough to bloom well the first year. Your patience will be rewarded, though, because they'll bloom just fine in succeeding years.

Finally, many of the flowers you raise from seed will re-seed themselves here in OK and you won't have to plant them every year. Here's a partial list of some of the ones that re-seed for me in zone 7B: zinnia, datura, hollyhock, four o'clock, nicotiana, poppy, globe amaranth, celosia, morning glory, moonflower vine, cypress vine, cardinal climber, black-eyed susan vine, verbena bonariensis, Texas hummingird sage, salvia farinaea, veronica, and sometimes Laura Bush Pink and Laura Bush Purple Petunia (native petunias).

So, if you want, you can list the flowers you want to grow from seed and the gardeners who post here can tell you about their own success (or lack of such) with those kinds of flowers from seed, and can offer their tips for success.

Soil preparation is the most important thing you can do at this point. And, keep an eye on your weather and don't plant the seeds of warm-season plants too early or they are likely to sprout and die when a really cold night comes along.

If the grass you're removing is bermuda grass, take your time and go down aboout 4" to 6" inches and get every single bit of stolon out of the ground. If you leave even 1/4" pieces scattered here and there in the soil...say only one small piece every 3 or 4 feet, that is enough stolons that the entire area will revert to lawn by July. Thus, it is better to spend the time up front to get ALL the grass roots out of there. Then, be prepared to hand-dig every piece of grass that sprouts in your garden bed while it is still small.

Finally, keep asking questions. How else do we all learn from one another if we don't ask???? I've been gardening a very long time, but I still learn something new on this forum every single day, and that's a wonderful thing.

Dawn

I agree with "okiedawn",on that grass. I would have suggested you have started the year before and dug or (this one is always debated) used roundup on the grass to make sure it was killed. I prefer killing over losing the top soil in the sod.I also would leave a one foot space of open soil around the garden to get any surrounding bermuda grass that might want to move into your garden.It is easy to grab it when you see it entering than after it is around your veggies.
But no matter what you will enjoy all the work,ups and downs of gardening when you see the smile on your child's face when they bite into a cherry tomato they watched grow!
I always planted water melons and would scratch my child's name on it and it would scar over and they felt they had their own little melon.

Tulsacityfarmer,

I am not a big fan of chemicals in general, but Round-Up is essential for anyone who is trying to remove bermuda grass and plant anything else in its place.

If I had been smarter, I would have had someone with a backhoe or dozer or whatever scrape off the top 6 inches of soil and bermuda grass before we even started building the house. (I am so much older and wiser now.) Like you, I didn't want to lose whatever topsoil we had here though.

I am convinced that a nuclear bomb could go off and destroy civilization and somehow the bermuda grass (and crab grass and Johnson grass) would survive and even thrive.

I am 99% organic, but I'll never give up Round-Up and I'll never give up the occasional use (once every three or four years) of Come And Get It for fire ant control. Without those two chemicals, I'd have nothing but bermuda grass, fire ants, and deer.

Dawn

Even Chuck Norris can't beat bermuda grass.

Oh, that is a very good joke. I am going to have to repeat that to DH and DS--they both enjoy Chuck Norris jokes. : )

Hey Amanda ... I'm also here in Tulsa and although I'm not new to gardening, I'm new to gardening in Oklahoma. In other words, where I'm from we don't have bermuda grass ... being introduced to it has been a horrifying experience. Anyway ... anything I can do to help, just let me know ... my email address is listed on My Page.

Brian

Yes Amanda, welcome!
I can't take the time this morning, to digest posts and respond. But I'm sure you're getting good advise.

Regarding Bermuda grass, I coulda swore, last summer, that it started to grab me by the pants leg. But I got free and beat it back with a hoe!

George
Tahlequah, OK

I grew up in Texas and we had a St. Augustine yard which I didn't really understand because all our neighbors had bermuda. I just always assumed that my dad, who was a gardener, liked the look of St. Augustine better. Our next-door neighbors who were very avid gardeners also had St. Augustine. I guess it should have been "a clue" that the only folks in our area that had St. Augustine were gardeners, but I didn't really understand that then.

When we bought our first home in Ft. Worth, which was just up the road from my childhood home, it had St. Augustine in the front yard and bermuda in the back. We immediately replaced the bermuda in the backyard with St. Augustine, mostly because the tall trees were shading out the bermuda. So, I never really had to fight bermuda grass much until we moved here, although it occasionally wandered from our neighbor's yard into some of my shrub beds along the property line back in Ft. Worth.

When we found this acreage that we now live on, it was essentially fallow farm land that had not been farmed in a decade or two although it had been leased out for cattle grazing. I didn't SEE any bermuda grass but we had many lovely prairie grasses and wildflowers. Of course, once we cut the grass around the house's building site, we discovered we DID have bermuda grass. GRRRRR!

I've been fighting the bermuda ever since. I spray Round-Up around the edges of the veggie garden and shrubs beds every now and then, but mostly I just hand-dig it out of areas where it isn't wanted.

As time goes by and our shade trees in the landscape get taller and provide more shade, the bermuda grass is being shaded out. When that happens, I gleefully enrich the soil and plant shade-loving groundcovers, shrubs and perennials. I suspect that in another 10 years we'll have a lot more shade and very little bermuda.

Bermuda grass will NOT peacefully co-exist with anything else that a gardener wants to grow. At times, I dream about replacing the bermuda with St. Augustine grass. This year, I think we may actually replace the bermuda between the house and the detached garage/barn with St. Augustine grass. I wish we'd done it long ago.

We overseed our bermuda on the half-acre to acre closest to the house with winter rye grass--mostly as a fire protection method but also because the rye grass weakens the bermuda grass and makes it green up later in the spring. I'm in favor of anything that impedes the growth of the bermuda grass.

So, Amanda, whatever you do, get rid of the bermuda grass near your planting beds and never, ever let it come back. When you see one tiny little sprig of bermuda grass popping up in a cultivated bed, don't try to pull it up because you'll only get the above-ground portion and not the stolon. Instead, dig it up, roots, stolon and all and, whatever you do, don't throw it on your compost pile because it will take root and grow there. I usually bag it up and haul it to the dump. Having a great garden means keeping the bermuda grass completely out of it. Otherwise, your flowers and veggies won't stand a chance.

Dawn

Amanda, nobody here is going to guffaw at you!

I'm just 50 or so miles north of you in Dewey, America (almost a suburb of Bartlesville, home of ConocoPhillips).

We all have to start somewhere. Don't let yourself get overwhelmed. Start with only a few things that you really want. Kids love cherry tomatoes and fresh peas because they can eat them right out of the garden and they're small.

You'll need good loose dirt and in this part of Oklahoma, that's hard to come by. I've been improving my soil for several years now by adding compost and leaves to the black gumbo clay. I finally, the last couple of years, have started to experience wonderful soft soil in my raised beds. You just think you have everything all set when Mother Nature comes along to show you who's boss. She sends late freezes, blows the baby fruit right off your trees and rains on you till all your tomato plants get sick and die. Then for good measure, she lets you go a couple of months without any rain at all and throws in some oppressive heat and a few hungry grasshoppers. So it's not as easy as it looks, but one thing we gardeners are, is persistent! We greet each spring with hopeful plans. Sometimes we have great success. Other times it's a bust.

One thing about starting from seed is that you're not out a lot of money if the garden doesn't do well. But if you buy plants, it adds up in a hurry!

I have several kinds of tomatoes, three kinds of cabbage, Jicama, and some bunching onions growing under my fluorescent light nursery. I have planted carrot seed in little newspaper cups but so far I haven't seen anything coming up. If not, I'll direct sow some around March 15, when I set out the cabbage and onion plants. The tomatoes and Jicama will wait till April 15, NO MATTER WHAT! I always fall prey to that period of two or three weeks of warm weather that happens before the last frost. I think, maybe we're going to have an early spring! Then the last frost happens. DUH.

Amanda, A note on starting pea and bean seed. If you raise super sugarsnap peas, which kids love, they will do better if pregerminated. You can either sow them in the ground after a week of pregerminating, or sow them in peat pots for another week or two in the house if you have lights or a really bright window--but no more or they will get too leggy and break over. The problem with putting the seeds directly into the soil is that they often rot before growing. But if you wait until the soil is warm enough that they germinate well, they don't have enough cool weather to produce well and the gophers and moles are more active. I use peat pots. Planted my pg seed yesterday.

Beans go in after mid April here in z 6b. I like to presprout them in the house too, just to be sure I plant good seed. One of the problems with beans is breakeage. If you have clayey soil and get a hard rain before they emerge, the soil can get too hard for the stem to get through and it can break and you get nada. You can solve this problem by covering the seed with compost or rotted sawdust or even a soilless potting mix if you have only a short row.

The only idiot questions are the ones that don't get asked so ask away.

Well, Dorothy, I didn't know that about the beans not being able to break through the soil! That must be why my rattlesnake beans did not come up last year. I planted them in a spot where the soil was not so loose as it is in other places, because I have not been growing things in that area very long. I will try your tip this year. Thanks so much! --Ilene

Holy Crap!!

Can I still round-up it?

LOL! I was reading these aloud to my husband and my kiddo got up (he's 3) and started paying attention. He got this astonished look on his face; I say "what's wrong?"; he says "are they sewing (soeing)kids? That's not nice!"

Okay, he started digging yesterday and of course he isn't nearly done. Are we best to dig up the rest and then round-up or is too late for that? Put a black tarp (bag) on top of the dirt? Do I want a 'raised bed' and how do I do that?
What do I put on the outside of the bed to prevent the bermuda that is surely there to keep out of my bed?

You guys rock! When I have more time I'll detail the seeds that I got. I absolutely don't expect huge success but if I plan carefully I hope I can get some prettiness. :)

Roundup is a post-emergent ... so you don't want to spray with it until the grass is growing. You can read up on the details on their website.

Here's a website that gives instructions for your basic raised beds. Much cheaper to build your own than try and buy what's out there ... that'll cost you an arm, a leg and your 3 year old.

There are lots of websites on building raised beds ... this is just one example.

Brian

Here is a link that might be useful: Raised Garden Beds

Amanda,

Brian gave you very good advice. Round-up is not effective at the current temperatures and would be a waste of money.

Bermuda grass is incredibly aggressive and incredibly invasive. What makes it even worse is that bermuda grass spreads by seed and roots and stolons, so it is a "triple whammy".

A guy we knew tried to "outsmart" the bermuda grass at his place by putting down 6 mm black plastic, cutting holes through it and putting white rock mulch on top of the plastic. This was after he'd removed the existing bermuda grass--or at least removed all he could find. He actually had pretty good success, in one sense, because he only planted maybe 4 or 5 shrubs in that bed. He found he could control the bermuda that grew up out of the "holes" cut in the plastic for the shrubs by "painting" Round-up onto the grass runners with a small foam paint brush (which allows you to put the Round-up on the grass without having spray drift onto and kill your desirable plants). However, when he decided to re-do that area after about 5 years, guess what he found under that black plastic? Big, huge bermuda grass stolons. So, even 5 years under black plastic didn't kill the stuff and that should be an indicator for you of just how aggressive it is.

To keep bermuda grass from creeping into your raised beds, put down heavy, thick cardboard and make sure the cardboard slides up UNDER the material (wood, stacked stone, etc.) used to hold the soil in your raised beds. Then, put 2" to 3" of mulch on top of that cardboard. You STILL will have bermuda grass sprouts, but you'll have fewer of them.

If I were starting a new bed or set of beds, I'd spend whatever it takes to rent a sod cutter and use it to remove the bermuda grass sod. The one-time expense of renting one (or of paying someone who has one to come remove the sod) is absolutely worth every penny. Is it the perfect solution? Of course not. However, it is a lot easier than hand-digging for weeks and weeks and it is the most effective way of getting most of the bermuda grass out of your proposed planting site.

I wish there were an easy way to build beds in an area once occupied by bermuda grass, but there isn't. Bermuda grass is evil.

Dawn

Dawn is right ... bermuda is the worst stuff I've ever run across. When I moved here last year I dug up a 40x60 foot veggie garden. Yes it was grass but I'm from the north ... grass is grass and not that hard to control. I'd heard of bermuda but never seen it.

The results were beyond disastrous. Tilling ground covered with bermuda is the absolute worst thing you can possibly do ... as Dawn points out, every little piece then starts a new bermuda plant.

Fought the stuff as best I could for about a month before crying uncle ... gave up and mowed the garden. After mowing it, you couldn't tell there'd ever been a garden there ... the bermuda covered it completely.

This year I'm doing raised veggie beds. It's costing some $$$ ... but it will pay off in the long run. And part of the building process is renting a sod cutter. I'm going to start with the area where the raised beds are going ... and then I'm going to keep going as long as I can. I'd rather have a bare dirt yard this year than deal with bermuda.

Brian

So... best bet would be a raised bed versus a regular bed with a border of some sort?

I've never tried to garden in an area where bermuda existed, but we had bermuda as the main lawn grass when I was growing up and it was fine.

Back in Texas we had Bermuda in the Back and St. Augs all over the rest. I can get bad - really bad if you dont dig down and get it all out of there. I made the mistake in a rose bed of leaving a grass pathway - there was lawn in both beds by Spring... but I did find that cut up paper around the areas of new plantings will keep the grass down and in about 4 years time working in the same beds I was able to have a 99% free Bermuda grass garden beds. You will never have a 100% Bermuda free garden in OK or TX without constant search. But winning the war can be done. I have found that bermuda hates to have the roots freeze so that can help to kill the plants.

Brian,

That sounds like a winner of a plan and I hope you'll keep us posted on how it goes!

One thing (one of a million) that I learned from the great Texas gardening guru Neil Sperry was that bermuda was more aggressive than a person could even imagine. I read his gardening columns in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram from the very first day he started writing them when I was in high school, I listened to his radio Q&A type gardening show for many years, I bought his books, subscribed to his magazine, etc. and really tried to soak up everything he said. When I was young and foolish and thought I knew more than I did about gardening, I questioned (to myself) his statements that, if you rototilled up bermuda grass, it would completely regrow and recover the area in just a couple of months if you left so much as one quarter-inch- long piece of stolon every 3 feet. I just didn't think it could regrow and take back an area that quickly from such tiny pieces. Ha! In fact, HA! HA! He was oh-so-right and I was oh-so-wrong, but I had to see it for myself to believe it.

And, for what it is worth, everybody I've ever known has had the exact same experience with Bermuda grass that you did during their first attempt at gardening in an area formerly occupied by Bermuda grass. So, I guess we gardeners at this forum can consider the battle with Bermuda a "rite of passage" that all southern gardeners must undergo. And, if you survive that "rite of passage" then you, too, get to be a gardener.

Amanda,

Actually, the best option would be to move someplace like Minnesota or Alaska where bermuda grass can't grow. Assuming that moving to a different state is not an option, then the best option is to do whatever you can to get every piece of bermuda root and stolon out of your existing soil. THEN, lay down a layer, preferably a double layer of cardboard on the ground. If you can get very large pieces like furniture boxes or applicance boxes, they'd be best because you'll have fewer "openings" in between pieces of cardboard where bermuda grass WILL find their way up through those openings. If you have to overlap smaller pieces of cardboard, overlap them by several inches.

Build your beds on top of the cardboard, and if possible have the bed edgings sitting on the cardboard with several inches of cardboard extending beyond the bed. That way, whatever grass sprouts outside the beds is still several inches away from them and that gives you a chance to dig it out before it climbs into the bed. Fill your beds with your growing mix. If you can buy in bulk or have a dumptruck load of soil/compost mix delivered, that is much more economical than going to the stores and buying it by the bag.

Once your growing mix is in place, buy a roll of fabric landscape mulch. You want the one that looks woven--it sort of resembles the appearance of felt. You DO NOT want the less-expensive one that says it has tiny perforated holes to allow water to flow down into the soil because it also allows bermuda grass to grow up through all those little holes. Use pegs or landscape staples to hold down that fabric. Cut holes in the fabric. transplant your plants through those holes, water in the plants, put fine bark mulch or clean (seed-free) straw on top of the mulch and you're done. But, you're not really done.

Even with the cardboard on the bottom and the landscape fabric on the top, you'll still have bermuda grass trying to grow in your beds 24/7. So, watch for it religiously, and remove it the instant you see it. You CANNOT pull it up because if you try to pull it, you'll get the top but the roots and stolons will remain under ground and resprout within days. You'll have to dig it out.

Do I like using landscape fabric in a vegetable garden? No. It is expensive and it limits what you can grow. Obviously if you want to direct sow anything in a bed, you cannot use the landscape fabric.

In the beds where I have landscape fabric, though, I have very few weeds at all and that is important to me because I have a very large garden and I cannot spend hours every day digging out bermuda grass. In the beds, like the onion bed or the carrot bed, where I cannot use landscape fabric, I have about 10 times as many weeds.

So, if you want to know the best way, in my opinion it is:
1) remove all the Bermuda you can find first, 2) put down a heavy cardboard barrier on top of the ground from which the bermuda grass was removed, 3) build the bed, 4) fill the bed, 5) put down a barrier on top of the bed, 6) cut holes through that barrier and plant, 7) water the plants, 8) mulch the plants, and 9) check your bed every single day for bermuda grass and remove each sprout the minute you see it. Using the above methods, I keep a very large garden pretty much bermuda grass free. Am I 100% successful in keeping the bermuda out? Heck, no. Every year, though, I have less and less trouble with the bermuda in the established beds, so I am making progress.

Beginning gardeners tend to break up a large area of ground and then fail to maintain it properly. As the bermuda grass invades and "takes back" the area, the beginning gardeners become discouraged and give up gardening in what was, after all, not a fair fight. Bermuda is much more experienced at fighting for every inch of ground than you are, so my advice is to go slow.

Build 1 or 2 small to medium-sized raised beds, even if you'd rather have 10 large ones. Look at your first year as a learning process and part of that process is learning how to keep the bermuda out of and away from your garden. Once you master keeping the 1 or 2 beds bermuda-free, then build new beds. You could build a new bed or two every year until you have as many as you need.

There's a saying many gardeners use in reference to gardening that goes like this: "It all starts with the soil." I agree with the truth in that statement--with good soil you'll have a good garden and without good soil, you will not have a good garden. However, there is a more important saying that applies to southern gardeners and that is "Get rid of all the bermuda first and keep it out!" Because, you know what.....bermuda grass loves good soil and wants that soil, so your good soil is only worthwhile to you if you keep the bermuda grass out of it.

I'm not trying to be discouraging--it is just that nothing drives new gardeners out of gardening more quickly than bermuda grass. Even an experienced gardener who has gardened for many years just finds themselves overwhelmed during their first "bermuda grass experience". So, learning to manage that bermuda grass is probably the most important "garden lesson" you'll ever learn. No topic that we discuss here on this forum gets more of a response than bermuda grass, and I've never seen a single person come on here and say "Oh, I have bermuda grass and it is not that bad." Bermuda grass in general, and tif bermuda types in particular, make lovely lawns. However, bermuda grass is not content to be merely a lawn--it wants to rule the world. So, as long as you understand what you're up against, you're likely to have better success.

I have seen some gardeners near me rototill or dig up a veggie plot every year. They prepare the soil in Feb. and March, they plant in March and April, then they start seeing bermuda grass moving back into the veggie garden soil in late May. By late June the bermuda grass covers most of the garden. By mid- to late- July the gardeners have abandoned the garden, worn out by trying to fight the bermuda. The next year they do the same thing. Then, the next year they do it again. They say they "never have much produce to show for all the work they do". Well, the problem isn't that they don't work in their garden, the problem is that they don't do the right things to keep the bermuda grass out. So, it is your choice, but I hope you'll make better choices than these folks that I see start over from scratch every year. If I were them, I'd try a new game plan because the one they've used for 8 or so years now just isn't working. On the other hand, they have a really healthy stand of bermuda grass in their vegetable garden. Trust me--you do not want to be that type of gardener because the frustration is enormous.

Good luck with your new beds. Keep us posted on how it goes.

Dawn

Hi Sopamanda and welcome to the OK forum. You're getting lots of good advice here. I'd also like to invite you to the Winter Sowing forum. We love newbies.

Winter Sowing is a technique which will yield you lots of success with flowers, and vegetables too. And you're just in time. You'll find lots of other beginner gardeners there too. In addition, there are several of us who will send you free seeds in exchange for the postage it takes to get them to you. I hope you'll stop in and introduce yourself. I'll include a link to the Winter Sowing forum. Once you get there, click on the FAQs. I'll be watching for you.

Email me if you'd like some free seeds. Soonergrandmom will probably be along here soon. She'll tell you whether or not she liked what I sent her.

Welcome,
Seedmama

Here is a link that might be useful: Winter Sowing forum

Wow. I am AMAZED at how helpful you all are. Dang!

Dawn, I copied and pasted it in a document and printed it. Maybe we could put that in a sticky or something so you don't have to answer it 20 times. :)

Thanks, all!

Okay,

So if I dig the sod, put the cardboard down, how high does the raised bed need to be? That is, what about room for roots?

Thanks!

Amanda,

Well, in general, the taller the better, within reason. As an absolute minimum, I'd go at least 4" above the surrounding area, and 6" to 12" is even better. For people who have mobility problems (like ankle, knee, hip or back trouble) or who are in wheelchairs, you'll see beds raised up to 2' or 3' above grade level, but the average raised bed doesn't "have to" be that tall.

When I build a raised bed, if I remove the sod and improve the dirt in the ground by working several inches of organic material into the soil, then I feel comfortable going only 4" above the grade.

If I were building a bed with cardboard on top of the ground without digging organic material down into the soil, I'd try to go 6" to 12" above the grade. Don't worry if you can't go too high above the grade.

One "hidden" benefit of using cardboard is that it is very attractive to earthworms. They come to eat and digest the cardboard, and as they tunnel their way through the soil beneath the cardboard, they are carrying some organic material (worm poop, also known by the kinder, gentler name of "earthworm castings") down into the soil beneath the cardboard. So, your plant roots will be able to penetrate the cardboard and the ground beneath the cardboard much more quickly than you'd imagine as long as the soil is damp enough to be attractive to earth worms.

In other words, your plant roots won't get to the cardboard and just stop growing because it is permeable. (That permeability is why you need to get all the bermuda out that you can first, because if roots can grown down through the cardboard, then bermuda grass can grow upward through the cardboard too.)

If you are going to build more than one bed, make the one for your tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, carrots, squash, potatoes and melons the tallest/deepest because they have big root systems. Other crops, like green beans, lettuce, radishes, chard, peas, spinach, etc. can go into more shallow beds.

Dawn

Thanks Dawn (and all!) you guys are like me little magic wand of information! Dawn, here seems the million dollar question: should I still get a soil sample if I'm needing to put so much into a raised bed and 2) where will I get so much soil (and it seems so important what kind it is)?

Amanda

Amanda,

Yes, I'd get a soil sample because the roots from the more vigorous plants are going to grow down through the cardboard into that soil and you need to know what you're starting out with, soil-wise. It also will be very important to know your pH because some plants can only grow in more alkaline soil and others in more acidic soil.

Just as important as the nutritional composition of the soil is its tilth and friability--meaning how hard and compacted is it, how much does it clump together when wet or how loose and friable it is. You can gain an understanding of your soil's make-up by doing the jar test in the linked magazine article. Just follow their instructions and you'll be amazed at how much you can learn about your soil.

We have a somewhat large piece of property so I did several soil tests when we first moved here and discovered our soil varied wildly. We have mostly old mucky Oklahoma red clay that dries brick-hard when dry, but also have some very silty areas and one band of very sandy soil that does not hold moisture at all and another area with sandy-clay that has been pretty decent for growing certain plants without massive amending. So, jar test the areas you're interested in planting and figure out what you have, then you'll have a better idea what you need to "fix".

As far as filling the raised beds, if you are improving the soil under them, you will automatically raise the grade of the soil by tilling in amendmemts. Let's say you till in 3" of a combination of amendments--pine bark fines, compost or composted cow manure or composted cottonseed hulls or mushroom compost or chopped/shredded leaves or peat moss or whatever. Between tilling in or digging in those amendments, you're going to break up and "fluff up" the native soil and that will give you a good base for your raised bed.

I am sure some of the folks who live in Tulsa can tell you about places that sell soil/compost mixes. Be sure to buy from a reputable dealer. Much of what is sold in this state as "sandy loam" is pure, crappy sand full of weed seeds and no nutrition and nothing is going to grow well in it.

What is most important about whatever soil you use is that it drains well and has organic material in it. You don't have to have a huge percentage of organic material--even if you just have 3 to 5% organic content in your soil, that is a good starting point. The more organic material you put into the soil, the better, but you don't have to put yourself into the poorhouse the first year. Take the long term approach that you'll do whatever amending you can this year and that in future years you'll continue to amend and the soil will get better every year.

Check Craigs List and your Tulsa Freecycle group regularly because often you'll see people giving away (on Freecycle or Craig's List) or selling (on Craigs List) materials that can be used to amend your soil. You might see chipped/shredded tree trimmings, spoiled hay, stable bedding (often straw plus manure or a wood shaving product plus manure), rabbit manure, etc. Many municipalities also chip and shred wood to be used as mulch. Get all you can. Even if you can only use it as mulch now, it will break down into compost and feed the soil.

If you look at a shrub bed or flower bed that was never amended but which has had mulch on it for several years, you'll see a beautiful layer of decomposed mulch (compost!) between the original soil and the top layer of mulch. The earthworms, rain, and other critters help carry that nutrition down into the soil over time, so always think of mulch as future compost.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Soil Jar Test

Round-up is the only un-organic thing i use.And like I said I would have started the year before (when the bermuda was active). A great garden takes planning.Raised beds cost money! You have also got to bring in dirt.And from experience the bermuda grass will grow under and into your raised beds also defeating the whole purpose of the raised bed in this case. (great for warming soil faster and if you have rock and sand maybe)I would just put in a small garden this year and enjoy the fight! But I would pick a spot for a permanent garden.I would kill the bermuda all summer.I would add all the compost and organic materials I could get a hold of, plus green sand, bone meal, wood ashes,if all sand add cat litter clay.This will get the earth worms going and nature will help you build your soil.If you can get some manure till it in. Plant a couple of green manures and till them in.Add all the leaves you can get this fall and till them in and I bet you will have the best garden in your area! Good Luck!

Wow, that is a lot of reading! A few short notes since you are new to gardening. Starting seeds indoors is a little trickier than you think without a heat mat and lights... so don't get discouraged your first year, just run down to Lowes or Atwoods and buy little cheap starter plants. One plant makes a lot of tomatoes or peppers or whatever. Bermuda is a monster. If you use "Round up" or any spray herbicide be aware that it will ghostly drift onto anything within a wide range and kill it too. Best way to use it is with a paint brush or sponge brush! To keep bermuda off your borders after you've weeded, there is a special propane torch that works great. I think mine is called "Hot Max". And on the size of your raised beds: remember your arms are only so long... be sure you can reach everything without a backache or stepping into the garden. One other 'fun tip' - if you want to seed anything that has tiny seeds, mix them first with "wheat germ", then sprinkle = you will get a more even spread without having to thin them. Most of all, don't get overwhelmed. Plants have survived without us for centuries. May your gardening bring you great joy!