Gardeners: let's talk soil improvement, your tips

In My Humble Opinion
1

My backyard lawn has behaved the same since I moved in: grow thick with…I don’tknow the name, it’s very tough, thick grass, weedy - in summer. Then die back in winter (I live in Los Angeles, by the way, in the San Fernando Valley, very hot, and we do have feeble yet detectable seasons that have an effect on plants. The valley can even have a frost on the occasional winter morning, so many types of lawns do die back in winter).

My gardener has always planted some pathetic thin grasss during winter that looks pretty for about ten minutes, but simply can’t stand up to any abuse at all. (I have a couple of dogs. So I told him not to bother this year.

Well, I don’t know if that’s why, but the lawn never returned. I have hard, yet sandy gray garbage land out back.

Now, I have been working my way across it (the dogs, have to be blocked, so I can’t do it all at once. Plus my energy isn’t enough to do it all at once.) planting crappy cheap grass, but first breaking up the soil by hand, playing in the mud. Soaking, breaking, planting. I used some homemade compost, and I got VOLUNTEERS! Tons of squash, summer and winter, tomatoes, who knows what else. So I’ve decided to just throw seeds into the ground, make as much compost as I can, and whatever survives, great. Let those roots bust up the soil, aerate, etc.

SO… what cheap, plentiful seeds do you recommend? I know legumes are the ticket for the nitrogen-fixing (Okay, laugh away, I bought a bag of bean soup and threw it into the yard to see if any would sprout, and voila!! They have! Cool BEANS! Hehehehe) but I don’t know which are best and yet easy to get in Los Angeles very cheaply.

Also, what prompted me to create this thread was the pondering of whether it’s really possible to actually create excellent soil. I know that my compost is fantastic, but it takes a lot of mass to create that, and a lot of labor. ( I actually raid the garden cans on trash day to keep my compost bins filled -cut grass is fantastic starter for compost…within mere hours after cutting it’s hot with bioactivity- but if you don’t mix it with dry and brown, it turns to slime. I also try to hit the farmer’s markets as often as possible at the end - they are happy to contribute as much garbage vegetation as I can carry. I’d do it more often, except that finding the brown/dry to balance it is difficult! I should gather leaves in the fall and store them for the compost…) A compost bin filled to the top on day one finishes at 20% of that.

So improving the soil directly through planting AND composting…how much improvement is possible? Can you really take a naturally hard, yet sandy soil and make it into something good? With very little cost…I’ve gone the expensive route with major garden catalog purchases. I’m not in a position just now.

I kinda like the idea of just continuing to throw whatever into the ground and let my own little jungle of stuff happen. Any edibles are better off… bugs don’t zero in quite so easily on areas that have variety.

So tell me your soil-improvement tales and tips.

2

When I lived in NJ, my house was on what used to be a chicken farm, and the soil was wonderful. When I lived in Louisiana, it was on the delta, and the soil was wonderful. When I moved to California (Bay Area) the soil was crap. Now, 10 years later, it is great.

My secret is horse poop. I compost, and I get the free compost given away my the waste management company once a year, but that is too low volume. Find a stable near you, and ask if you can haul away their composted horse manure. Bring a bunch of black garbage bags and a truck if possible, and a pitchfork and shovel. Dig into the middle of the pile, since that’s been there the longest, and has composted more. It works great, you can get as much as you can take away, and it is free.

Stables have to pay to get rid of the stuff, so I think they will be thrilled to give some to you. I found about this from my daughter owning a horse, but the barn she rides at in Maryland has a sign offering horse poop.

You may want to compost it at home for a while if the stuff you get is too raw, but it doesn’t smell and the plants have never been sick.
We do neigh once in a while though.

3

You really do need to amend your soil before you start planting anything, if you want to do it right (and much, much easier). And yes, you can amend any soil - amending soil is just putting more of what your soil is missing into it. If your soil is sandy, you need more organics (like what you get from compost and manure). If your soil has too much clay, it also needs more organics. You might also need to mix in some peat and topsoil. I’d talk to the local gardening experts - they probably know what soil conditions are like around your area, and what they generally need. My final recommendation - plant things that will grow in your area. The right plant in the right place takes most of the work out of it. If your grass all died, it wasn’t the right grass for your yard. You might need hot, desert-y type plants.

ETA: Your yard also might need aeration, if it’s hard-packed. Working the compost and peat and topsoil in will do that, too.

(Envy me - my yard has too much topsoil. Of course, I am in Zone 3, so I have a two month growing season. :smiley: )

4

Horse poo! Fab! I happen to live about 10 minutes away from horsey areas near the studios… even just to add it to my soil/compost… fab!

They probably have straw and the like as well. Actually, Griffith Park is overrun with leaves and dry plant matter… I could get my compost going pretty seriously.

You made me think of good things. Thanks!

(2 month growing season??? Jesus… how can you spend so much time in cold and dark? Do you all have a big depression problem up there? I get SAD (seasonal affective disorder) if it’s overcast for more than two days…)

5

Red clover to the rescue!
Plant red clover this fall. It is attractive, grows in the winter, fixes nitrogen, had beautiful red blooms, and can be bought in large quantities on the cheap as it is used by hunters as a forage crop.
I have been growing plants professionally since 1996. I felt my stand of Dixie Reseeding crimson clover down by the orchard this spring was one of the most beautiful things I have participated in. It attracted many wee flying critters, to boot.

6

Worm castings provide an excellent non-burning nitrogen source. I turn about 30lbs into my garden every fall, and when spring arrives my plants have a surprising vigor to them.

My parents also sprinkle the casting on their lawn every spring. You can’t tell the difference between their lawn, and a lawn that is chemically treated.

7

Straw/hay is excellent as a mulch. A friend of ours teaches at the elementary school across the street. They use a bale of hay for some reason for their 49er day celebration, and we lend her our truck to move it to the field. After she’s done with it, we get it. It’s more than we need, but it works pretty well.

I haven’t had much success with leaves in my compost bin, but dry plant matter will be great.
Having a long growing season is great. We often get squash right into October/November. We’ve also grown potatoes, onions, shallots and leeks over the winter.

8

I exaggerated - it’s actually a four month growing period - we plant at the end of May, and everything’s pretty much done by the end of September. Our growing period is not the same as our sun period, though - Alberta and all the prairies are exceptionally sunny. Of course, come December 21st, our day is eight hours long, dawn to dusk. :smiley:

9

I live on the water, so we use seaweed in our garden. Anyone want to come over and see the size of our zucchini? :smiley: I’ve got heritage tomatoes the size of a babies head.

Sorry had to come in a brag…

Carry on.

10

I didn’t really start making good soil until I heard about and understood the soil triangle. Organic matter, humus, is essential but not a permanent part of your soil’s structure as it is constantly consumed, eroded and blown away.
My particular bit of the planet is largely silt, so I’ve added sand and some clay when available, attempting to attain the coveted loam. Through manuring, green manure and composting the resulting soil has the “chocolate cake” texture and colour and retains moisture in drought conditions. Cost a little gas for the truck and bicep soreness. Can’t leave out patience.
"So improving the soil directly through planting AND composting…how much improvement is possible? " Your current strategy will yield results but will be faster growing high biomass crops. Around here ( NE U.S.) buckwheat or vetch/rye combos (depending on season) serve.
Vetch is a good legume for the purpose but I’m not really convinced there’s any symbiosis with other growth in terms of nitrogen fixing.

11

There is another approach; amend the soil by planting anything. Vegetables are great for this.

Buy plants on sale, and let them do the work; they will struggle to grow, die, rot, and provide humus. Their little (doomed) rootlings will do a lot of your work.

Needless to say, use this approach with only the cheapest plants.

But if you are in CA, you might be in a desert. Set up a rain barrel and a soaker hose.

And remember that gardening is a process, not a product.

12

I am completely with you. If you are about the end result, hire a landscape designer. I’m in it for the experience. I’m a middle aged woman with a good excuse for playing in the mud. :smiley:

I just love to watch stuff grow.

13

Plant alfalfa if you need to break up the soil deep down. It has a deep penetrating root system.

A more practical cover would be clover to live among the grass.

A winter cover crop to use would be winter rye.

You can throw down some hairy vetch to improve the soil.

14

I have terrible soil. My new subdivision is right where years and years of nothing was, and I’ve got these huge macho weeds coming up through the pathetic sod that was laid down after the house was built (~5 years ago).

Compounding this lawn problem is a flower-bed problem: every bed I open up is lousy with ROCKS. Gravel, of the sort that gets left behind at construction sites and which I previously assumed was hauled away. So now, every time I plant something, I have to spend hours picking out the damn rocks, and still they rise to the surface. I’m tempted to hire a backhoe and have them scoop out my entire back yard and dump four tons of topsoil on top and start over. If, you know, I had unlimited funds.

15

Get a compost screen. There’s one that’s made for wheelbarrows for sifting big chunks that I love: http://www.originalwheelbarrowscreener.com. Lower on the page is a smaller version designed to fit over buckets, only $15. Very good for rock screening.

If you need a finer size screen for smaller rocks, search for “compost screen” or “soil screen”. There’s also instructions on how to make them:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/compost-sifter-screen-sieve.php

Fun!

16

Hey, thanks for the tip! :slight_smile:

17

The last house we rented had a back yard like that; two inches of topsoil and hard-packed, rocky clay under that. I think you’re right; I think it does take a backhoe to get a proper soil bed out of a yard like that. I tried to plant carrots, and they grew fine until they hit the clay layer, and then they just couldn’t go any further.

18

Are you my sister? I rate my week-ends by just how dirty I get.

Re: screening soil
I have an old joint compound bucket with wire screening (~ 1/4 holes) tucked in the top; I just dump anything I dig out onto the screen & scrape it around a bit. I screen the compost the same way.

Having paid for stone twice (gravel for drainage), I am determined to never do so again ( I live in New England; rocks are our most successful crop). I save all my stones in empty plastic pots, and use them for ‘mulch’ on potted plants. I use larger ones (baseball size) to edge the flower beds. I use big ones as mini retaining walls. I plan to use a lot in the vegetable garden next year to hide a barrier ‘mulch’.

Damn, talk about Yankee frugality; I won’t even throw out a stone.

I don’t have a big yard, so I compost in big storage tubs with 1/2 holes drilled in them; I buy (neutral colored) tubs whenever I see them on sale. The earthworms in those tubes are HUGE. Recently, I’ve started dumping any soil I dig out in the compost and using the ripe stuff for plants.

19

In all fairness, stones are hard to throw out - put a couple of those in a garbage bag, and our local garbage dudes won’t be heaving them onto the truck.

20

Another method if you’re handy and have tools: Get 2’ wide chicken wire or hardware cloth and some 2x6’s. Cut two 2x6’s 21 1/2", and two to whatever length you want your screen to be + extra for handles. Rip 1/2" or so off the bottom of all of the 2x6’s. Screw together to make a box, using the 1/2" strips to hold the screen in. Round off handles with a drawknife. An ASCII side view follows, but since this mesage board eliminates extra spaces, hit “Reply” to see it. I’ve got one of these with 1" chicken wire, and one with 1/2" hardware cloth, and they work great. The handles allow you to bounce it so everything falls through without having to scrape the stuff around to get it to fall through.

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