Mistake number One ? Probably number Ten but we've learned.
We bought in a landscaping mix at about £70 a tonne delivered in 1 tonne bags which is a mix of compost, sand and soil.
We've had very little bother with weeds in the soil but it has proved far too heavy. We filled to the top of each bed to allow sinkage but as it's quite a heavy soil it didn't budge an inch - typical.
We know we'll have to 'work' the soil for a number of years to get it as we want and that it will be an ongoing process, adding manure and compost each year. We incorporated some mushroom manure in the lower levels when filling and added a good handful per m2 of general purposes Growmore.
This spring, we started removing the top 6-8 inches in those beds that weren't planted (we'll do the others once the crops are pulled) and adding in a good level of compost and forking it well in. The difference is huge already. I've had a mix of 'home grown' compost and bagged compost but the latter lacks guts and we know we need to add fertilisers to get good yields. (I'll post later about this but a seaweed spray has appeared to be really good as a pick me up, booster)
I came across a good way to calculate how much soil you'll need for a bed:
Lenght x Width x Depth (in metres) x 1.3 = number of tonnes soil needed. We found this to be pretty spot on.
I'll post about the first, autumn plantings next.
We bought in a landscaping mix at about £70 a tonne delivered in 1 tonne bags which is a mix of compost, sand and soil.
We've had very little bother with weeds in the soil but it has proved far too heavy. We filled to the top of each bed to allow sinkage but as it's quite a heavy soil it didn't budge an inch - typical.
We know we'll have to 'work' the soil for a number of years to get it as we want and that it will be an ongoing process, adding manure and compost each year. We incorporated some mushroom manure in the lower levels when filling and added a good handful per m2 of general purposes Growmore.
This spring, we started removing the top 6-8 inches in those beds that weren't planted (we'll do the others once the crops are pulled) and adding in a good level of compost and forking it well in. The difference is huge already. I've had a mix of 'home grown' compost and bagged compost but the latter lacks guts and we know we need to add fertilisers to get good yields. (I'll post later about this but a seaweed spray has appeared to be really good as a pick me up, booster)
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| Autumn planted onions on the heavier, original fill of soil |
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| Onions and garlic spring planted on the improved soil - a big difference already. |
I came across a good way to calculate how much soil you'll need for a bed:
Lenght x Width x Depth (in metres) x 1.3 = number of tonnes soil needed. We found this to be pretty spot on.
I'll post about the first, autumn plantings next.
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