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PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2004 4:04 pm 
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Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2003 9:37 am
Posts: 28
Location: Frisco,TEXAS
Howdy,

I moved into my new Frisco house a few months ago. In that time I've gotten two of my beds nicely prepped by digging down about a food, mixing in lots of compost, lava sand, green sand and molasses. Unfortunately my wife has been buying plants faster than I can prepare beds, so we've been cutting corners like just digging the hole for the flower, putting in a little compost, but leaving the majority of the bed unimproved. (FYI, what the builder left us in the bed areas was the original clay covered by an inch or two of builders sand topped by 1-3 inches of mulch.)

I want to get back ahead of the game and get those last beds finished, but the fork and shovel technique is just taking too long. That and the limitation of how many bags of compost I can reasonably fit in my Civic. So I'm thinking of renting a tiller, buying a pickup truck load of compost, and just tearing into those last beds with gasoline-powered gusto.

Is this a good idea or a mistake?

--Bill


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 8:38 am 
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Joined: Sat Apr 19, 2003 12:12 pm
Posts: 110
Location: Garland
rototilling probably isn't your best bet. You could get your compost dumped and spread on top along with the mulch. Amend the soil with corn meal, molasses, and all the other stuff you mentioned. it will work from the top down, and you wont' be damaging the microbial activity by rototilling.

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"A righteous person who is wise resembles God: he never disciplines anyone in order to take vengeance upon a wrongdoing, but only so that the person may be set aright, or that others may be deterred."
-St Isaac of Syria


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 8:39 am 
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Joined: Sat Apr 19, 2003 12:12 pm
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Location: Garland
rototilling probably isn't your best bet. You could get your compost dumped and spread on top along with the mulch. Amend the soil with corn meal, molasses, and all the other stuff you mentioned. it will work from the top down, and you wont' be damaging the microbial activity by rototilling.

_________________
"A righteous person who is wise resembles God: he never disciplines anyone in order to take vengeance upon a wrongdoing, but only so that the person may be set aright, or that others may be deterred."
-St Isaac of Syria


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 23, 2004 4:29 pm 
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Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2003 9:37 am
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Location: Frisco,TEXAS
Ok, based on the reply and some other things I've read here, I've decided not to till. My theory was that since my soil is completely unimproved clay, I'd be better off sticking all the good amendments down in there to get them working. But I now realize that I'd be killing off what life there may already be in the soil.

So, here's the new plan: Scrape back the existing mulch. Mow the weeds. Optionally lay down newspaper to discourage new weeds. Cover with many inches of compost. Water. Mulch with many more inches of shredded cedar. (By the way, all they sell in the stores is "aromatic cedar" is this the same as the native cedar Howard recommends?)

Now I probably won't get to planting every one of my new beds this year, so here's my thought for the ones I won't get to: What if instead of mulching I try a green manure? Is there one that works well for late spring early summer? Is there one that's reasonably attractive as a temporary ground cover?


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 24, 2004 7:58 am 
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Joined: Sat Apr 19, 2003 12:12 pm
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Location: Garland
well, as far as attractive goes, you could put down the manure and mulch over the top...won't hurt anything, and will probably help a lot in the interim

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-St Isaac of Syria


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