soil and fungi

[jamesw]

Hi everyone i need your varied and wide ranging opinions for my garden. I have not long moved into a house where the whole back garden was decked. I have now started to take 2/3rd up, i was wondering why there was a raised area like a seat feature:confused1: Found a nice raised bed with 4 very rotten stumps with 10 Ganaderma adspersum (as seen on tis the season to be fungi:blushing:)brackets on them!

The question is i want to put that bed back to good use either with veg or shrubs, do i need to treat that soil before i can grow anything? I personally think it does however if it does what do i do?

Cheers guys for looking and thanks for your opinions in advance:thumbup1:

[Lee Winger]

For veg just work in some well rotten 'pigs' or 'bullocks'' manure, horse manure contains too many weed seeds...

 

Drench with a few hundred liters of sugar [2kg sugar to 100l water] and water solution leave over winter, get growing next spring, sod the shrubs grow organic veg.......

Edited September 29, 2009 by Lee Winger

[jamesw]

cheers lee thanks for that will get onto getting some pig manure failing that horse as i can get that anytime. I would rather put the sugar in my tea but will have a go.

The soil in the main garden is very clay and wet so i was going to add organic material and grit to try and give it better dainage and hopefully become more fertile. What do you think? i think i will wait to see if a herringbone drainage system is needed until after the turf has been layed and i can observe it better. Not sure if its slightly boggy wet because it has been covered for so long with nothing to soak up the water and no way for evaporation as such:confused1:

[Lee Winger]

If you intend on veg, I'd leave the grit out. I wouldn't touch horse manure either, usually full of dock and nettle seeds ready to germinate in your nicely prepared seed bed.

 

If your soil is heavy clay and you want to get really technical, add lime every other Autumn to the soil, and either manure or compost the other year.

 

You can get masses of veg from a very small area, enough so you won't have to buy much from the shops, the trick is planning, IE forget spuds, and concentrate on salad, perpetual spinach, legumes, courgettes, beets [by the way you can eat beetroot tops cooked like spinach] climbing pumpkins [grown on bamboo frames] etc etc

[jamesw]

going to do the veg in the small part! but want to turn the rest to lawn for my daughter to play on and plant the odd flower, shrub and tree. Cheers for the advice Lee really appreciate your input/advice want to get things sorted this week:thumbup:

[mdvaden]

Do a web search on "double digging" garden soil. It worked well for me, and often it's done just once.

 

Some people say if it's repeated that it leans toward compaction or something, but I debunked that myth easily.

 

But the double digging can be pretty good.

 

Even if you don't, investing some improvement will make a difference, like the manure for example.

[ScottF]

For veg just work in some well rotten 'pigs' or 'bullocks'' manure, horse manure contains too many weed seeds...

 

Drench with a few hundred liters of sugar [2kg sugar to 100l water] and water solution leave over winter, get growing next spring, sod the shrubs grow organic veg.......

 

What's the sugar do, Lee?

[Lee Winger]

What's the sugar do, Lee?

 

Feeds and cultivates the little micro organisms, fungi, and bacteria that do all the good work.......

[jamesw]

dug it over and smashed the last of the oozing mushy stump today and built the walls up as it a raised area. So am ready to put on the sugar tommorrow!

Oh and the main point the missus is happy:001_rolleyes: