mulch http://gwen.kiehnefamily.us/taxonomy/term/27/atom/feed 2007-02-20T10:04:57-08:00 Turning Dirt into Soil http://gwen.kiehnefamily.us/turning_dirt_into_soil 2006-10-20T01:56:00-07:00 2007-02-20T10:04:57-08:00 gwen Well, it's a dream come true. We've moved into a new place that has real dirt outside for me to play in. I'm planning my first vegetable garden, and I'm trying to get it right from the beginning. I might drive myself crazy with too much information, but a girl has to do her research.

HausiendaHausienda

dead jungledead jungle

The first step in the gardening process was to condition the dirt. The poor garden had been neglected for the entire spring and summer including a couple months of drought. Everything is dry and some stuff is burned. Weeds have taken over the existing garden beds, and lots of stuff is dead or struggling. The stuff that did manage to bloom was obviously working on early spring reserves. It's so sad how destroyed the yard is.

digging everything updigging everything up

replacing organic matterreplacing organic matter

adding compostadding compost

Tom and I ripped up basically everything that didn't look like it was coming back, which was practically everything. The entire garden beds had been covered in plastic weed fabric that needed to be removed. This was a labor intensive project. We worked in small plots until we got it done. The first step was to remove the layer of leaves, dead plants matter, and organic mulch from the top of the dirt. We dug down about a foot, hand tilled the bottom of the hole, and added the organic matter to the bottom of the hole. We sifted through the dirt that we removed, pulling out debris, rocks, weeds, root balls, garden fabric, etc. After adding an inch of compost, we filled the hole back in. At the end of each day of conditioning the ground, we moistened the ground using a garden hose.

sheet mulchingsheet mulching

Once this process was complete we sheet mulched the entire garden space. I added lime and organic fertilizer to the surface of the plots. Then I covered the dirt in a layer of cardboard (the edges in newspaper), and wet the whole thing down. On top of this layer I placed 6 inches of horse bedding (used straw + manure), and wet it down again.

All in all this was a time consuming project. The nice thing is that it only needs to be done once. The idea behind sheet mulching is that you do not ever turn (till) the soil again. Instead you add more layers to the top that encourage microbes and insect life to the work, I like that.

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