Can Bamboo chips be tilled into my soil?
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Amending soil with wood chips, what will that do to my soil?
Comments (12)Depends. If the soil has ample amounts of organic matter now and an active Soil Food Web mixing in a high carbon source of material might have little to no adverse affect. However, if the soil lacks adequate amounts of organic matter and an active Soil Food Web, mixing a source of high carbon into the soil can result in the soil bacteria getting busy digesting that carbon and temporarily causing most of the available Nitrogen to be tied up. Once that carbon is digested, or mostly so, that N will be once again available to the plants....See MoreTilling soil before weeding
Comments (15)rhlee - now I know where you are situated I'll chip in. I also have clay soil and there is an optimum time to dig it. That is in spring or autumn when it is damp but not too sticky and not yet dried out. At the moment I would at least wait until after it's rained before trying to dig. I would do it like this. Get a proper garden fork, not a little hand fork. Forget tillers unless you are doing a large open area like a veg patch. And forget prongy cultivators as they don't dig deep enough. It is a waste of effort to dig and then to weed separately. Do it all in one action. Slowly work through the beds digging a full fork depth (not 2 inches) and removing weeds as you go. Go carefully around established plants. Put as much organic material as you can onto the beds - make compost, get rotted manure, put down autumn leaves, whatever. You can turn any annual weeds under as you go or you can put them on the compost heap if you prefer. Perennials like bindweed and couch grass must be removed thoroughly and dried totally before putting on the compost heap. I really don't recommend the newspaper method under our conditions. I have tried it, and the cardboard method, and all I get is compacted soil under the paper, weeds coming through it and a barrier to properly cultivating the soil. Also, and I know this sounds odd, I don't think the layering technique is really in keeping with the style of gardening over here where we tend to like to see some nice turned earth in a well defined , crisp edged bed, not a surface covered in various organic materials. But that's just a matter of taste. Don't worry about hurting the worms. They'll burrow down if they're disturbed. If you do happen to spear a few it is of no consequence in the sum of things. It has been pretty warm and relatively dry in London recently so it might be better to overhaul the beds later in the year. In the meantime just cut back weeds to prevent seeding. If anyone near you has a tree surgeon in with a chipper they might be prepared to let you have some wood chips if you can provide bags. They make a good mulch. Later on, when you are just doing maintenance and want to get a few weeds out, a hand fork is far better than a trowel which is mainly designed for planting....See MoreSandy Soil Till in my old mulch?
Comments (5)Okay... veggie garden it is... You can dig it in, and it will definitely improve the soil. In warmer climates it will generally break down faster than in a cooler climate. Keep in mind though, that as woody material breaks down, much of the present, available nitrogen will get temporarily 'tied up' by the flora and fauna that work to decompose the material. You can easily compensate by adding N fertilizer as you're turning in the mulch. This is what I would do, and in a season or 2, you'll definitely notice the improvement. Watch your plants, if you notice signs of N deficiency (noticeable yellowing of older leaves for one,) then be ready to use a soluble N fertilizer so the crops won't be forced to compete with the decomposing woody materials....See MoreTill soil before soding
Comments (59)I found a document with the soil map for our area. Since soil can vary from yard to yard it may not be completely accurate but my subdivision was built on what used to be prairie farmland. Of course our top[soil was scraped off and trucked away during the building process and then some subsoil was brought back in to fill, compacted to create the rough grade. Then we purchased topsoil to meet the final grade requirements. This is what the document says about existing soils in our area: Malmo Silty Clay Loam The Ellerslie association consists primarily of Chernozemic soils. These soiIs are characterized by a dark colored, granular and friable Ah horizon (topsoi I) of high fertility. The B horizon is fairly friable while the C horizon is calcareous but only weakly saline. Soils of this association are developed on lacustrine silty clay and clay material. The soiIs of the EllersIie association have the highest potential for landscaping and for supporting plant growth. As a topsoil source it is superior to the other soils in terms of thickness, organic matter content, and total nitrogen content. At the same time the analyses show that the water soluble salt content, as expressed by electrical conductivity and per cent sulfate, is negligible and should not affect plant growth....See MoreRelated Professionals
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