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[at-l] OT - Soil From The Ground Up



Jan et al,
My wife Jane is our gardener and I am the laborer when heavy duty stuff 
comes up. Hey, I know my role.

Anyway, she did a lot of study and we made raised beds. 3   2x8's or  3 
2x10's to make each one with a 2x2 attached on the bottom in the middle to 
make sure they do not spread in the middle.  We made 18 of them and it to 
about 20 tons of dirt to fill them up...all shoveled by hand.  After that 
she added organic matter of various sources.  She likes it a lot because it 
makes the garden neat, you can separate varieties and being no more than 4' 
wide, its easy to reach in from both sides and the ends.

She can't wait till spring and the 70 degree weather yesterday really got 
her out in the garden pulling old stuff up.

Good luck


Mainframe

At 10:50 AM 1/5/2005, you wrote:
>So,
>are there any other obsessive gardeners out there who have built a 
>balanced soil from the ground up?
>
>I know I'll need more amendments. I was thinking a little powdered clay, 
>to help hold nutrients (clay is negatively charged and hold the calcium, 
>magnesium, potassium, trace-mineral, et-all ions; sand is neutral, hence 
>no fertility - all I remember from Soil Science 101) We tend to be quite 
>acid here in the east, and esp. on this sand. Anyone built up from sand 
>before? Come on, I can't be the only garden obsessive here.
>
>I remember Helen and Scott Nearing speaking of greensand, and other 
>mineral amendment. What is greensand, anyway (beside green)? Anyone else 
>add stuff like that? Felix The LandScaper, where are you?
>
>CompostOnMy Shoe
>--
>========================================
>         AT Journal:
>         http://www.trailjournals.com/Liteshoe/
>         Jan Leitschuh Sporthorses Ltd.
>         http://www.mindspring.com/~janl2/index.html
>
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>
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