Beginner Gardening: New House, New Garden, Help, 2 by RickCorey_WA

RickCorey_WA wrote:
>> I'd like to edge my garden with something.

I use concrete paving stones stood on end to make raised beds, but I understand that you don't want raised beds. If you lay them flat to make a dry surface to stand on while you garden, and to keep the grass roots away from the bed, you can always change your mind later and stand them up on end!

They do make plastic edging that you drive down into a slit cut in the soil, and that helps keep grass roots out of the garden.

>> 2) What do you recommend to clear the garden bed?

I hope someone familiar with "lasagna gardening" chimes in. They lay heavy cardboard or many layers of newspaper over the grass "to block the weeds". Then they lay the ingredients for composting over the cardboard, and grow right in that for the first season.

I might not be describing it right, but you can search the Soil and Composting forum for "lasagna gardening".

[b]My own preference is very old-school, [/b] until I finish the process by building raised beds on top of the loosened, amended sub-soil.

I dig down 12-18" and then remove the soil (but you could do it all in place). I arrange for the "floor" of dense clay to slope downwards toward whatever edge or corner is downslope, and cut a drainage trench from there to a low spot in my yard. I have just about NO natural drainage in my native clay.

I screen out rocks and roots and break up the clay finely.

I add as much compost as I can afford.

Then, since I can't afford infinite compost, I add some mineral grit like finely crushed stone, very coarse sand, or #2 chicken grit (1-3 mm in size). Those are heavy and expensive, so I don't add much: maybe 1/2" to 1" of mineral grit. It has to sustain some soil structure after the compost decomposes.

Then I add cheaper "bark grit" which might only last 2-3 years, but does help aerate and drain during those years. I screen cheap, fine bark mulch to get the finer parts for soil-amending. I save the bigger chunks for mulch. If it passes through 1/4" screen, it can be used. It's more effective if it is small enough to pass through 1/8" screen, so it may be worthwhile to use your lawnmower on it.

Then I till that to mix it very well. I want the clay to intermingle with the compost and bark fibers and sand.

This makes up my partly-amended [b]subsoil[/b]. It has to sustain fairly good drainage and some aeration. I firm it down to encourage it to stay "fluffed up" as water passes through it.

Then I amend the soil that I removed even better than I amended the subsoil. I use more compost, and I screen it more than once to break up the clay balls as small as possible and mix them with the amendments. I will let it sit and compact and be rained on, then screen it again and usually add more compost.

This becomes the topsoil - piled on top of the subsoil and mixed just enough to make a gradual transition so it drains uniformly. By now I've added so many amendments that the soil lies well above grade, so I throw walls around it to make a shallow raised bed. I use concrete paving stones stood on end.

During the first year, the compost encourages soil life, and the clay mingles with the amendments. For the first 2-3 years, I usually have to turn it again to mix more compost deeply, and to re-establish the soil structure ("fluff it up"). After a few years of adding compost, and of soil fungus and root hairs and worms doing their thing, the soil seems not to need as much turning.