How bad did you screw up? Pret-ty bad. No soup for you. Now, in regard to dandelions (disclaimer: I am a strongly pro-dandelion person): 1) we can't grow them fast enough. My daughter's guinea pigs want nothing else to eat. Same, I think, for rabbits. So if your daughter is interested in a pet, she could do a thorough weeding herself. Mine does. All you need to say is that she has to pick them in the garden first. 2) I make myself 5 or 6 dandelion salads in April and October. Without going into detail, they sure flush your liver and generally detox you, and that is particularly needed at the end of winter. Dandelion is a major medicinal herb, at its tastiest when it is needed the most. I also make alcohol infusions of the stuff (both root and leaves) mixed with other herbs. 3) if you have clay soil, they are just about the only thing that will loosen it. Unlike mechanical methods, they create channels that go down one foot or more. Everything grows in a spot where a dandelion once grew.

Next time, I will probably buy Scotts Premium Topsoil. Had I known about that product, I would have saved a lot of money (this mushroom compost crap was grossly overpriced), and not gotten full-sized sequoia trees in each bag. Actually, some bags of this mushroom compost were smooth as butter. Others were awful. If only I were not rushed for time, I might have been able to be more careful. So, it's established that I screwed up. I acknowledged that in the opening post. The question is--what do I do now? Will my power mower help with this issue, as has been suggested? I'm going to spend some time picking up the worst of it by hand. Raking is not an option, as I can't disturb the seedbed. This should be fun.

The Lee County extension office told me the same thing about no peat and no vermiculite. But then I went to see a neighbor's garden that's been using a peat/vermiculite/compost/native soil mix for 9 years and he's had great success. He has had to add Azomite, greensand and bone meal now and then and has decided after a successful experiment last year that he'll be going without the native soil or any topsoil mixed in. He had success with the soil mixed in, but he's had even better results without it. I decided to ignore the extension office and followed his mix, since I could see his results with my own eyes and his past results through his blog over the years. So far my various beans and peas, corn, tom thumb lettuce and watermelons are all happy with it. My pepper and tomato seedlings are all very happy in that mix in their transplant containers, soon to be going in the beds. I did block off the native soil, but my neighbor has not. So there's a variation there, but both are working. We live in an area that was created by dredging and filling from the Caloosahatchee, so I think we would have similar PH concerns, but I opted out of a soil test since I blocked off the bottom of the bed, so don't know the specifics. As for depth, I have 10" of soil and my neighbor has some at 12" and some at 18" for root crops. And since we are both getting our first harvests in, I'd say we didn't screw up and there is certainly no disaster. Hope this gives you some positive hope. : ) Chrissy

The quantity is ok but you should sprinkle it away from the trunk at the drip line of the canopy.