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jon_e_gw

Intro and dirt question

jon_e
13 years ago

Hi,

I'm Jon, I live in southern VT, Zone 4, been doing SFG for a dozen years but at our former residence. We moved across town a couple years ago and this year is the first time since summer 2007 that I have had a chance to plant a garden. We live in the woods and only get about 6-7 hours of sun a day in the most open spot. I am going to drop more trees but I need to make this work for now. I have built three boxes out of roughsawn 2x10 pine, which I expect to last 8-10 years at least (based on past experience). I have a sawmill so I can always cut more.

Anyway- my soil question. I have zilch for decent topsoil. I have been composting here at the new house for 2 years now but it is mostly sawdust, wood ash, leaves and kitchen scraps. It's not the best compost and needs to decay some more, although last year one pile was about 30% worms by volume, so I guess something's working. All I have for soil is composted horse manure that has been sitting for about three years, and compost from old brush piles and some of what what in the compost bin. My regular soil here is clay and rocks and not much else. I mixed the horse manure and compost in about a 3:1 ratio and it looks great but there is no actual dirt in the boxes. No sand, no clay, no rocks, no loam, nothing. Just poop and compost.

Should I be adding anything else to these boxes? It's been so wet here that I haven't planted anything (and it's June!) but the next week is supposed to be great and I have tomatoes, peppers and a bunch of seeds to go in as soon as the soil becomes less mud-like.

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