I know this is an old thread but I wanted to update what I did over time to get "rid" of the lava rock problem that we had. This last week, I finally scraped alot of the remaining rock out of the large bed and spaded topsoil, compost and some organic fertilizer into the soil. However quite a bit of the lava rock remained and I spaded that in along with the amendments. I simply could not get all the rocks out with a flat type of coal shovel. I double dug the areas adding amendments each time along with organic fertilzer, soy pellets, etc. (Not alot of fertilizer but a sprinkling to get things cooking along with the compost in there.) Of course this was heavy, sweaty work but it is finally finished off. I wish I had been able to get almost all of the lava rock out of there but too much of it had already been mixed in with soil over the years and I simply couldn't get it all out without removing ALOT of the soil along with it. But I was able to spade the vast majority of it back into the amended soil before adding a final layer of topsoil, compost, soy pellets and wood mulch. (In the end I probably added back 4 inches of amendments to make up for the removed lava rock and put another 3 inches of wood mulch on top of all of that.) So now most of the remaining lava rock has finally been worked into the soil where it can hopefully decompose more quickly and become part of the soil. I NEVER recommend lava rock or landscape fabric to anyone but if you move into a house that has them you can probably get away with leaving some to dig into the soil. I say this because after all the amendments and digging in of the remaining lava rock (which was still a fair amount of lava rock) the final "soil" drains well. (But it took ALOT of work that wouldn't have been necessary if I had never had the lava rock in the first place.) The plantings are doing very well but I'll know more this summer when the wife plants flowers into this newly amended soil with some lava rock spaded in. Time will tell. In the end though, I WILL NEVER use lava rock or weed barrier fabric on my garden ever again. These were the two biggest mistakes I have ever made in all my years of gardening. Just my personal opinion. (The reason I got rid of mine and/or incorporated the remaining lava rock into the soil was it had become unsightly over time and some parts stayed too damp and a small bit of moss was growing on some of them. This situation had to be corrected because it was really bugging me. LOL!) Finally, I was surprised to find quite a few earthworms in this old "lava rock" soil when spading in all the new stuff. That did really surprise me, I didn't expect to see earthworms in this old stuff. Now the earthworms have a good soil to live in!! (I hope!!)

This forum is primarily about sowing seeds in the winter and spring using Trudi's technique with containers, etc. I'm thinking you might want to ask this on the veggie or tomato forum?

Cindeea Yo might check out plantcreations .com. Everything I have would be don't get it within 10 miles of your house types lol Would love to have the weeds back gary

Hi transplant, I think you may be confusing mulch and compost. Mulch is a substance, organic or inorganic, that lies on top of the soil and whose main purposes are to regulate the soil temp, preserve moisture and help prevent weed growth. In your case, the rocks are your mulch. As far as feeding your plants, I'm just going to speak in broad generalizations here. Many xeriscape plants don't like rich soils or a lot of fertilizer; however a light feeding of most of them once a year is usually a good thing. Don't use a fertilizer high in nitrogen at this time of the year - nitrogen stimulates green growth. I use a liquid, organic formula that can be either sprayed on foliage or poured onto the soil. This works well for rock mulched beds. Again, this is just a generalization and you might want to do some research about the individual needs of your plants. Hope this helps.