Manufactured Soil

[rawpromises]

Does anyone know if this is good in raised beds. I googled it but get various answers. My garden is currenly organic but I am adding two new raised beds. The soil I have on my land is pure clay and rock. I have never heard of this before. When I filled my other beds years ago I added compost, manure, ect. so it's been sometime since I got soil. The man I spoke with also said he had mushroom soil. Any thoughts or ideas on either of these.

[Tannim]

not sure what you mean buy manufactured soil but compost mushroom or manure topsoil a little sand and vermiculite (big tip on the vermiculite DON'T buy from the garden center head over to the insulation department of your big box store and look for the huge bag it'll be 3x as much for 1/2the price) depending on how high you want to build up these beds you can fill and mulch them lots of different ways take a look at this http://kerryg.hubpages.com/hub/Hugelkultur-Using-Woody-Waste-in-Composting and then do some googling on hugelkultur for ideas on some "self watering" beds and you can easily mix in different types of mushroom spawn that will benefit your veggies and give you choice edible and or medicinal mushies for years

oh yea used coffee grounds are great sources of nitrogen you can usually get a ton free just by asking a few coffee shops

[Traceyraw]

I use organic potting mix and then mix my compost with it. I put a gravel layer on bottom for drainage.

[rawpromises]

To be honest I'm not sure what I mean by Manufactured soil either. When the man said it, it was the first I heard of it. He said it had compost, sand, and something else. Maybe what you are describing. When I looked at it, it looked really like mulch. I'm not sure how good it would be for raised beds. Now the mushroom soil I did google and found good things about it. That stuff is pitch black and looks really rich and good for my soil. Thanks for the tips and advice everyone.

[Tannim]

honestly I would mix some of as many sources as you can the mushroom soil is good basically its composted H or C poo thats been used in a commercial agaricus bisporus(the common button/portabello mushroom)operation and is good dirt but I would mix a few different sources in that way you get good physical structure that holds water while draining well resists compaction personally I like to build raised beds somewhere between hugelkultur http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/ and no dig sheet mulching
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CriHmRpeP0&feature=related if you build a very large raised bed its much easier to work in I prefer 2-3 feet deep with the bottom 1/2 to 2/3rds filled with brush woodchips(all of the townships around me offer it free) then build up layers of straw rock dust compost leafmold top soil sand clay basically any biomass that I can source locally for free or cheap all that wood on the bottom acts like a sponge holding in the water and as these beds age they keep getting better and better especially if you added some mushroom spawn(or 3 different kinds ) while you are building it it may take a 6months to a couple years to start getting mushrooms(depending on the size of the bed how active the mycelium is ect) but any way you do it if your getting green things growing your doing it right I'll leave you with one last video called Dirt! the movie well worth your time to watch it
http://www.hulu.com/watch/191666/dirt-the-movie

[rawpromises]

Thank you so much. All the infomation was very useful. i appreciate the time you took to write to me. I think the video above is fabulous. I'm going to be a Grardening Queen now.. this method would do very well in my yard. I can't wait to implement the idea.

[Tannim]

glad that i could be of some help just remember whatever you do a good thick mulch on top will help keep weeds down and hold in moisture best idk about where you are but spring has exploded into summer here in norther IL and its the season i'm doing more or less miniature versions in containers oh yea a couple other things to consider adding rock dust or other minerals will help your food develop to the best of its genetic potential and adding a Mycorrhiza (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycorrhiza) inoculant to your seed and starts is like giving your plants a fungal bodyguard/buddy forgive me if i'm rambling on but fungi and soils are a passion of mine

[rawpromises]

Ramble away. I love to talk this stuff as well. We are having a winter like your area as well. I live in MD and it was 75 today. As for your container gardens. How do they work out for you. I have 8 raised beds right now but want to add container garders as well. I have never planted in containers before but I am this year. What do you find grows the best in containers. Tomatoe, cucumbers ????

[Tannim]

the biggest issue with containers is making sure that every one gets watered as they dry out a lot faster building self watering containers helps with that as does the mycorrhizal fungi(by making sure the root system can find every drop of water in the soil)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bhW5hf09ak&feature=related take a look at that video and some of the others that come up in the recommended/like sidebar there are a lot of different ways to do it but that helps quite a bit I'm trying to do most of mine with woodchips instead of the reservoir but I have seen tomatoes get 10' tall in the earthbox style containers (i've gotten some up to like 7 but most of mine don't get that big) the reason I'm doing containers is the place I'm living has way to much shade in the back and side yards and I'm not allowed to touch the front but I can put the containers out there as long as I move them enough to keep from killing the lawn I also might be moving anytime most anything will grow in a pot as just have to think about the root size I think I read that you ideally want double the amount of space you expect the roots to take up and as far as finding containers FREECYCLE and craigslist are great

[rawpromises]

This is wonderful. Thank you so much. I have tons of these boxes and never gave them a thought. I really need more space and this is defienly the way I'm going to fit in more tomatos and cucumbers. Awesome. Thank you Thank you.

[MysticTree]

That seems an over complicated way to get water to your plants. The amount of time taken to make each one is disproportionate to the amount of time it takes to water by hand even.

[Tannim]

I really have to disagree the first time you do it it might take 20-30 min but after making a couple its like 10 min and you can make systems scaled to most any sized containers(whatever you can scrounge up to recycle) you want and with the bigger earthboxes you can go a few days between topping them up in all but the hottest part of the year and when you do it takes less time to pop the hose in the spout and just fill it up to the overflow line than to give a similar sized pot a thorough watering but we all use what works for us this may be a bit of a "maker geek" project but it gives good results and imnsho is pretty fun next tue I'm doing a different project
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOadilqJeeg&feature=related

[MysticTree]

that pallet video is doing the rounds on facebook at the moment. Looks quite cool. Let me know how well the plants stand up to the growing conditions. We are embarking on a move - garden and livestock - to a large(r) plot of land. Most of the pallets we find will have to be used as fencing though.

[Tannim]

I saw it on a local PBS show and was intrigued I work as in retail on a replenishment crew we toss out pallets all the time now are you planning on taking the pallets apart to build the fence? if your not then maybe make the fence outta living walls and orient them so the plants are away from the livestock maybe just to grwo a little extra fodder for em

[MysticTree]

I saw it on a local PBS show and was intrigued I work as in retail on a replenishment crew we toss out pallets all the time now are you planning on taking the pallets apart to build the fence? if your not then maybe make the fence outta living walls and orient them so the plants are away from the livestock maybe just to grwo a little extra fodder for em

Hoping not to take apart but won't grow in them. I want them to last as long as possible and a goat would eat the backs off! There isn't a shortage of space for growing flats of wheat grass etc for them and obviously veggies for us! The plot is about 100yards long by about 50 ft wide and we have only a small number of animals.

[mtgrl788]

I use 1/3 vermiculite
1/3 peat moss
1/3 compost (from at least 5 different types)

With this you cannot over water! as long as there is drainage. I use a tarp to mix it than ad to a raised bed.

[MysticTree]

I use 1/3 vermiculite
1/3 peat moss
1/3 compost (from at least 5 different types)

With this you cannot over water! as long as there is drainage. I use a tarp to mix it than ad to a raised bed.

Peat is not ecologically sound.

[mtgrl788]

What do you mean by not ecologically sound? I've read in many raw websites where they use peat moss to help control mold while growing wheatgrass... And on a many bags of organic soils peat moss is in it.

I'm a little confused.

[Tannim]

because peat moss is not really a renewable resource its mined from peat bogs if this is something that bothers you coconut coir is a good option. can't believe i forgot to mention rock dust add lots and lots of rockdust remineralize the soil and you get amazing results

[mtgrl788]

Is it not renewable because it take years and years to grow? Is coconut coir just like peat moss? I only use peat moss to retain water but not alot of it because it'll retain too much. I'll look into coconut coir.

[streetsurfer]

Look up biobizz soil

[Tannim]

yea its mined from peat bogs and takes a long time to regrow the coir will hold onto water a bit better than the peat and it has a few more nutes in it but you can pretty much use em 1 for 1