Thanks Guys, now that I rethink all this it makes perfect common sense, I mean why remove grass and native soil when I can just add rich forest soil on top. I will receive the benefits of the microorganisms from the forest soil, while the grass will be decomposing under the added soil creating a thicker topsoil layer! :-D I will also receive the benefit of leveling out the ground! Thanks! More tips and thoughts appreciated!

Mike

If you don't want to bust your as* digging topsoil from the forest, get some cheap compost and mix that with a little bit of that topsoil, it will be a fine mix. Check out for your city giving away free compost.

Also, I was telling you to put newspaper and cardboard tonsmother the grass and make sure it's dead.. Instead of that, if you are concerned about th chemicals from the newspaper and cardboard, You could rake up some leaves from the woods( I do this all the time for my massive compost pile,not nearly as hard as digging topsoil) and lay that on the grass and that will smother it, especially with that heavy topsoil from the woods, the grass don't stand a chance! I would also cut the grass you want to kill as short as possible before doing piling on leaves and soil,it will help to kill the grass...

-cut grass as short as possible(literally scalp the grass)

-add leaves/newspaper/cardboard, whatever you prefer to smother the grass

-Pile on your topsoil/compost

- apply a heavy layer(few inches) of leaves or other mulch

-plant

It as easy is that! You could make this as simple or as complicated as you want.. Instead of keep double guessing what I'm telling you, I would get out there and do it.. The sooner you get your beds made, the better your gardens going to come along... Any other thing you need help with?

Joe

Hi Joe, Is it that important to cut the grass before applying leaves? I'll go with leaves instead of cardboard since we have so much composting near the forest. Also, are you familiar with using flowers and herbs to repel instects that are bad for the garden? What vegetables would you recommend for me to grow in the Pioneer Valley, MA(Google It) The zone is 6a. Thanks!

Mike

It's not essential to cut the grass, but it certainly will help.. Make sure you have adequate leaves/soil to smother grass. A well known flower to repel insects/deer is marigolds, their flowers are edible and high in antioxidants. Are you going to fence the garden? You have problems with deer? Crush a few cloves of garlic and let it soak in a jug of water, strain and spray on your plants.. Garlic is known to deter deer and is an antifungal.. Talk to your neighbors, local farmers/gardeners, and nurseries about what grows well in your area.. You can even give a call to your county agriculture extension.. Any other questions? Im more than happy to help you.

Best of luck,
Joe

"when I can just add rich forest soil on top. "

I understand that this is chirping in a gale, but I'll just tell you again Mike, if you will take note: native soil in nearly all of the humid eastern part on north america is acidic by default. There certainly are exceptions and your native soil might be one of them, but judging by your photo showing a very typical mix of pine and oak trees predominating, and your statement that the soil is sandy indicates that your forest topsoil will be overly acidic to grow vegetables in without amending first.

So now let me ask this: since any soil you drag from one part of your property is overwhelmingly likely to be identical to the soil on you garden site, then why do it? All of Joe's advice revolves around covering the sod so that it will eventually rot. This is a perfectly good strategy. I did just that yesterday for a new plot in a backyard in central MA. However, what Joe does not grasp is that mere covering with cardboard and some OM of unknown quality does not necessarily correct native problems.

Here is the crux of the matter: all situations are different. My home garden started out in a very sandy loam with high OM. That means I could be liberal with woodash and I could till the ground no matter how wet the soil. In a high-clay soil I could not do that. Here where I am now for example, at my daughter's house the soil in the backyard is a black sludge of decomposed granite with very high OM, about ten inches thick laying over a fine gravel. It's soaking wet now so spading and cultivating is out of the question. I covered an area heavily with cardboard after scattering down azomite and woodash. The sod will rot and the worms will start digesting the OM and the minerals, and I'll plant the warm-weather crops there. The front yard OTOH is much higher, a sandy silty material and is dry enough now so I spaded the area and tilled up rows, added azomite and manure and planted the early crops. I had planned ahead and added calcium to that area last fall.

Time will tell if my calculations are correct. What you can be sure of is that the one-fix strategy that considers all soils and climates to be the same is an ineffective one in many cases.

Why bring the soil from one part of my property to the other pnbrown? Because, as I have stated before I need to level out the ground. What veggies do you guys recommend to grow? I also started my compost today in a bin. Any tips on hot composting?

Your photo depicts an enviaby flat situation. Your concern with "levelling" is a product of the existing sod cover.

Well it ain't as flat as it seems!!! I'm not totally dumb when it comes to gardening, in fact I do have SOME experiance.

"However, what Joe does not grasp is that mere covering with cardboard and some OM of unknown quality does not necessarily correct native problems."

In fact it does my friend! That's half the reason I recommend it! You could fight me all day on this one! What you don't understand is tilling the soil disrupts the soil structure, inhabits microorganisms because they lost their habitat, and completely off balence nearly everything in the soil.. You guys could argue with me all day on this one.. Let me flip your house, that you been living in for decades, upside down and till it real good, I'll tell you - we'll the plumbing wasn't working, it's not wet, so I tilled it up, Im just fixing your foundation.. You'll look at me as I'm nuts.. Thats what the worms are doing, peaking their head up telling you your a fool for tilling!

Oh and with the native forest soil being to acidic to grow vegetables.. Where do you get this from? Maybe acidic, but i never found it to acidic to grow vegetables, it works wonders for me.. Its one thing sticking a probe in to check pH , it's another thing to live in that soil and realize exactly how it works, that's where man has its downfall.. We will never know exactly how anything works.. We could make educated guesses all day long, we are never going to know.. There is tons of vegetables growing in native forest soil all around me! Lettuce,cabbage, strawberries, dandelions, and I wouldn't doubt you could find alkaline loving plants as well..

The whole reason I advise him to bring soil in, is not because it's flat, but because that's the best method that doesn't disturb and ruin th soil.. It does the opposite!

No , of course not all soils are the same, and they do have different problems,etc.. But I can tell you one thing, Improving soil structure is the key for just about everyting gardening.. And if you think tilling your soil with specific amendments for your situation is the way to go, because farmers been doing it for decades, you got another thing coming.. The base of gardening is plants, the base of plants are soil, the base of soil is life.. Improving the life of your soil is key..

You could have success with any method! I don't care if your shoving your plants in tilled up rock, it might grow.. Plants are made to survive and grow.. Its the level of success that is key...

Joe

Joe, everything I have told you is from direct experience. Many times I have seen crop failures in this area due to acidic conditions, IOW, the attempt to plant in unamended native soil.

I'm not an expert on the soils of MA. I would suggest that undoubtedly neither are you, and obviously you direct experience is less or probably zero, and I will further guess that you are not an expert in the make-up of soils anywhere. Your idea that all soil is the same and good results can come from one technique in all soils and climates and at any time of year is not a real one. Because some plants have thrived for you here and there in certain conditions does not qualify you to make these sweeping statements.

I shan't get into a pi$$ing match with you much longer (no matter how entertaining it is for us and everyone else), but regarding your silly idea that I am pro-tillage:

For 10 years I gardened a half-acre with only a shovel, fork and scythe. I used nearly no inputs of any kind after some initial small inputs. I produced enough greens and root crops for myself, and small amounts of legumes and potatoes, what the deer did not eat. It was as close to no till as it is possible to be without losing the entire system to perennial weeds and brush, and indeed I lost ground every year. Also no irrigation, I wasn't using that fossil fuel to pump water as one does with a well or municipal water.

Producing enough food to live is a very different thing from maintaining a few raised beds by hand. If a person wants their family to survive a winter from grown food, then tillage must happen. This is a fact I have determined without doubt. I don't care at all who believes it, I've seen it in action. It is completely impossible for us all to live by raised beds filled with trucked soil, and even if we did eventually those beds would compact, run out of fertility and get taken over by deep-rooted phosphate adapted weeds.

"Its one thing sticking a probe in to check pH , it's another thing to live in that soil and realize exactly how it works, that's where man has its downfall.. We will never know exactly how anything works.. We could make educated guesses all day long, we are never going to know.."

How soil works in given conditions is a very active and known science...it's one of my degrees. You can call it an "educated guess" but it's best to call it "educated" without the "guess" part if you're working with known variables.

You can always nail down into a subject where there's an unknown, but there's a whole lot more known than unknown.

It's a very active and old area of science. Looking at nutrient movement on the cellular level is the newest/freshest aspect of soil science...especially in microorganisms. We know what the end result is...but how does it achieve that end result? That kind of stuff...

You can't destroy science just because you think there's too much of it...or people "over think" stuff. Battling known science with hunches and assumptions isn't a winning battle. Just because I observe that 90%+ of the ingredients in a soda is water...that doesn't make water the unhealthy and fattening part of the soda.

As far as the tilling part goes...you don't seem to understand that some nutrients and components of structure (physical and chemical) are very immobile in soil given what you're initially working with or trying to change (amongst other things). There are some nutrients that are going to take years to find their way into the soil...there's structure issues that will take years to correct themselves if you don't till the native soil...there's a place for tilling initially then switching to no-till if desired, it's not an either/or. Time can solve many issues, but how many years to "fix" an issue is worth avoiding tilling?

You seem to have an industiralized view of tilling...the commercial farmers out there tilling every single year, a couple of times a year. Most of those farmers are killing grubs and tilling in nutrients/herbicides trying to manage 10s-100s-1000s of acres in a manner that is cost protective of their seasonal crop. This isn't home garden stuff...this is commercialized farming. Those practices...done incorrectly...can lead to diminished farm land. This isn't the same realm as the home gardener, though...even the ones that till 1-2 times a year. You're very rarely going to see a piece of commercial farm land...even organic...with home garden quality soil, much less mulch on the soil unless it's a fallow (non-growing) time of year and it's a cover crop or plant litter left on the field.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Sun, Apr 7, 13 at 19:03

Hey Guys, So today I leveled out part of my plans garden area by tilling and bringing in soil, I also started my compost. More tips plz. And pnbrown is the most negative person ever! I mean gardening is supposed to be fun, not an annoying and negative chore! Jeez!

Frankly, I'm exhausted, indont feel like having a pissing match with any of you.. We all got some true/false in our statement... If it makes you feel better, you win..

Mike: what kind of soil did you bring in? What did you till in your soil? I'm sorry but I'm very curious, what made you go the till route?

I don't think pnbrown was trying to be negative, we were just having a
debate.. Some people misunderstand and think I'm negative as well... Its hard to judge someone through the computer.. He was just trying to help you.

Joe

No one's trying to win...people are just trying to face subjects head-on.

Your assumption that there's no place for tilling only works on some soils if you want to wait for years or apply a huge amount of soil on top of a native soil.

There's a lot of soils out there that don't have good microbial action, nutrient capability, or structure until they're mechanically changed...whether it be seasons/years waiting for water/worms/roots to do it after adding top dressed amendments...or it's done in a few minutes with a tiller. Just because a soil is undisturbed doesn't mean it's healthy even if it's only seen trees, weeds, and grass on it it's whole life.

Some "bad" soils are found in the volcanic areas of the Pacific North-West (structure), the South-West deserts (structure + pH), the south/central-US alkaline areas (structure + pH), the upper Mid-West (pH), and the South-East (occasionally structure + pH), and a few other places depending on a variety of factors...all different considerations and soils...all different ways to either quickly fix a problem, or take seasons/years to fix a problem. This is before getting into urban vs rural lands (especially for structure) and former land use issues.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Sun, Apr 7, 13 at 20:38

For instance...just to bring this "home"...

{{gwi:276285}}

This is a view of approximately 1/6th the area of the state of Arizona and it's soil series profiles...mostly near Pima County.

While some of these 30+ soil series profiles can be managed the same, some can't/shouldn't be managed the same.

This land, much like all land, is made up of parent materials we may not be able see anymore or see signs of in historical records since humans inhabited the land. Rivers and streams that used to flow...lakes that use to exist...climates that were vastly different...mountains that have long since eroded or sprung up where it was once flat..,plants that used to grow that haven't been seen in centuries...etc etc...

Specifically, some of these soils in this particular soil series are highly alkaline, some of these soils will contain huge physical barriers to root growth (caliche deposits) that need breaking up, some are full of gravel, some have no structure aside from sand, some are some decent soils that would only need a top dressing a few months-to-a-season to remediate themselves.

Even over the course of a few hundred miles in a general area you can have so many different kinds of soil that have their own special considerations depending on what you want to do with it...from building a house, to planting a garden.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Sun, Apr 7, 13 at 20:58

I should of said, I don't want to waste my time debating.

I'm not debating...I'm lecturing because you consistently keep passing off bad information as fact in multiple threads.

You should be used to lecturing, you do it to others a lot. You did it a few posts above this one.

It's okay to say "you can do it without tilling" or "I don't like tilling"...but to keep passing off tilling as some Dust-Bowl-era land destroying method that has no use in the home garden, especially with notions that aren't even facts in some cases, is a disservice to information sharing when you're trying to pass it off as gospel. I don't know why you assume undisturbed/native soils are inherently balanced or good...a lot aren't or the only hold-back to farming any piece of land would be water, seasonal weather, and nutrients.

I'm trying to show you (and others who may read this) how soil works in series/profiles since you keep insisting that tilling is destructive and unnecessary. In some cases it can be beneficial, and it's not just 1% or 10% of soils...it's a wide range. In some cases it can hasten soil health...in some cases it can hasten how long it takes to put land into production...in some cases it's not necessary. That's the main 3 points in a nutshell. The home garden is not a 100 acre farm...there's a huge difference in tilling and soil quality in both systems. I could go till my garden every single year and still have quality soil because of what I've put into it for management. The worms will be there, the microbes will thrive, and the nutrients will flourish.

Not all "native"/undisturbed soils contain good things just because they're naturally created. I can show you land in Eastern TX with a few inches of lush looking black soil with green plants growing, but just by looking at the type of plants growing you can tell those are bad "pioneering weeds" that are growing on some really nasty, nutrient bare, saline soils that needs a lot more than some top dressing unless you want to apply a lot and wait years for rain/worms/roots to move that good stuff into the root zone. Time can solve almost anything, but it doesn't always make sense when you're amending non-ideal soil to begin with...especially when you can make it better for microbes, worms, and ideal plants much quicker.

If I really wanted to lecture, I'd get into how sourcing "forest soil" impacts the local tree's fungal, microbial, nutrient cycling, and CO2 conservation/sequestration...and how you should never source it off slopes because the impact is multiplied along with the extra impact of runoff erosion. I could also add to the point about acidic nature of some forest soils and not-so-awesome tannins one could add to their garden if they harvest from a heavy oak forest. There's way too much to cover already with this "tilling is evil" b/s as it is, though.

Hey Joe, The soil I brought in was from the forest, What made decide to till was the need to flatten out the landscape. plus I'm glad I disrupted the soil because I found a long hole in the soil about 1 and a half inches wide. (I put some soil in here and stomped on it!) Thanks.

Mike

Mike:

If I was you, I would mix some compost with the topsoil you brought in, and make a raised bed. Also look into cover crops..

Best of luck,
Joe

I have no idea what a cover crop is.

-Mike

A cover crop is something you plant to keep your soil in place. It is similar to a green manure crop except that the cover crop may not be turned in when it would provide the nutrients a green manure crop might.

Ummmm, I'd revise the above defnition considerably. A groundcover is something you plant to keep your soil in place. A cover crop is a crop planted primarily to manage soil fertility and soil quality; then secondarily to manage water, weeds, pests, diseases, biodiversity and wildlife in the agroecosystem. If it is grown as a nutrient source or to improve soil quality it IS turned or worked into the soil.

'Green manure' is just another term for cover crop.

Here is a link that might be useful: cover crop fundamentals

OK that was interesting... but a lot of info too! Thanks!

So much so Indeed!

Mike, I hope, if only to satisfy or rebut my exceptional "negativity", that you will return here in a few months and revive this thread with a report on which crops were able to thrive in unamended forest leaf-mold and/or soil laid on top of lawn with an unknown history of amendment. I'll be very surprised if crops other than those known to have some tolerance to acidity like tomato and potato produce much if at all.

It's unfortunate that this forum has no mechanism to aid gardening neophytes in parsing experienced advisors from self-appointed advisors who do not have much experience.

Pnbrown:

From my understanding, Mike did not lay unamended forest soil ontop.. He tilled it into his soil..

As far as education and experience goes, you can't beat a few good books.. Get out there apply what you learned and the rest is research, trail, and error.

Mike: Forsure, let us know how it turns out.. Pnbrown would be more than happy to help you, again.

Joe

Thanks Joe! That Exactly what I did, tilled the forest soil and sod and now I am making compost. And you pnbrown! Just SHUT UP! SHUT UP! You are so depressing to be around! And it's not like I can't add lime to make the soil less acidic!

Funny how people quickly get on a first-name basis with internet-niks who tell them things they like to hear while everyone else remains formal, though of course completely deserving of insult and rudeness. Imagine how depressing I must be in person if I can wield such an influence in cyberspace, huh?

Don't forget to buy quick-release lime. But Joe has assured you that the soil is not acidic, so why bother?

It's unfortunate that feelings have gotten hurt in this thread. If this is because of "snark" on my part then my apologies.

I am probably not an ideal person for these discussions because I won't hold my cyber-tongue when I see what I believe to be mis-information or sweeping statements that can easily be misconstrued. The thread has been overwhelmed with such, as well as also containing good information - notably for example from NC.

It's a bit amazing sometimes...or not so amazing, really...to see how many people will show off their ill-advised-grown plants and harvests being proud of what they got...and totally unimpressed when they're informed they could have gotten more out of it and their harvest isn't that impressive given what it could have been.

I've seen plenty of threads with people showing off their plants/harvest, proud of them...happy about them...when it's rather obvious the plants aren't producing well. I've seen a lot of people proud of their huge green plants even though they're not producing much fruit because they over-fertilized. I've seen people with puny plants not putting out much fruit because of bad soil or bad nutrient management still proud of their harvest...etc etc...

Most of these types of threads I haven't even been involved with...just watched things "go down" and saw the results pop up later. Most of the time I didn't chime in after the fact telling them it could have been done better.

I think some people are just happy to get something at all.

It kinda jives with what I've seen in the real world, though. Almost half the people I give seed/seedlings to...even though they actually want to grow food...don't even get the plant to live long enough to harvest any amount worth mentioning (if they live long enough to harvest at all). They neglect soil health, plant health, watering, location, time, etc...some of these that would require very little additional work or foresight to do right.

There's a kind of "plant it, and it will grow" mentality to gardening that's popular the past few years...that "over-thinking" things isn't natural...that nature will take care of everything itself (even though almost every garden crop we plant isn't native to this country). It's rather naive to believe that man can only interfere with and screw up nature rather than working with it. It's not dominating and conquering nature...it's a matter of understanding nature and manipulating it to make it do what you want to do in the short term.

...and if you're going to manipulate nature with a human hand, it helps to do it correctly...and usually there's more than one way to do it correctly depending how far you want to push it. That doesn't mean doing everything you can to get an ideal harvest...but there's a lot of things one can do without much effort or cost to ensure you get as close to ideal as possible.

btw...I'm not saying that moraleagle's soil is going to be bad.

I have no idea what moraleagle is doing, really. Looking at the trees around the area from his picture I'd be concerned about pH and if those oaks are red oaks, tannin effects on the immediate crop depending on amino acid/protein content of the harvested soil. The tannin issue, if at all applicable, can "fix" itself over the course of a season or 2...the pH issue rarely fixes itself on it's own.

Most people advise adding soil that you know has a certain amount of purity and security in pH range. Simply grabbing something from the forest then dumping a wild-guess amount of lime in it can be a crap shoot. Sure, it will probably help soil structure, but soil structure is only one component of soil health.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Sat, Apr 13, 13 at 17:05

Indeed, NC, reading existing trees and shrubs on a site as an indicator of soil qualities is a fascinating science on its own.

Around here these differences are quite stark, as they are most places I have been. A domination by pitch pine and scrub-oak can tell one not to bother trying to raise crops, unless one is willing to import heavily. As an interesting note in that vein, here I have more than once heard old-timers say that locust grows in "poor" soil. And yet I have noted that it is always found in the better soils of the region. I think this is connected to that misconception about legumes (as locust is in fabacae), that they do not require fertility. So we find people planting peas and beans in pure sand and people getting the signals from locust trees in reverse. In other regions with generally much superior soils it might be that locust prefers the poorer types (and that correlation was carried here by early settlers), but here the poor soil is much too poor for locust.

Going back to an earlier post, I can attest to how difficult it is to dig in the woods. A few years ago, I went into the woods to bury a bird that had died, and I was astounded at how hard it was to dig even a shallow grave. I had thought I would bury the bird 6 or more inches below ground. I don't think I was able to even bury it 1 inch below ground; probably less than 1/2 inch. It's very hard to dig in the woods.

I think I may have been on University of Missouri property in Columbia, MO, because when I emerged from the woods, an MU police officer was waiting for me inside his cruiser, wanting to know what all that noise was in the woods, and what I was doing with the closed styrofoam ice chest in my hands. I explained to the officer that the noise can from the digging implement scraping against the forest floor (whole lotta noise came from the scraping because I wasn't making much digging progress), and I explained that the closed ice chest was the item I used to carry the dead bird in. He was so nice, he didn't even ask me to open the closed ice chest to verify my story, or take my name, or anything.

I'll upload a pic in a minute of the soil progress and compost.

Zoysia - That's my stompin' grounds. If you were digging in dry weather in our Boone Co. clay, it would have been just as bad, forest or not!

Glad you didn't get sequestered by Columbia's Finest. There's just the one fine one, the rest are complete rednecks.

Hi Toxcrusadr. I lived in Columbia for many years. Great place. Where I was digging the bird's grave in the woods was nearby some walking trails. So what suprised the MU police officer, I think, wasn't someone walking out of the woods, but all the scraping noise. It took a long time to scrape a shallow grave for the bird--the ground being so hard in the forest/woods :-)

Hi all, finished my garden! Made a fence, planted veggies, mixed compost and made paths. It's all DONE! I will upload a pic tomorrow. How are you all? Updates? Progress?

Mike

So did you build beds out of material that you pulled out of your woodsy area, or did you buy compost? Did you turn the sod, or pile stuff on top?

I got way behind on planting, and was forced to plant corn into beds that I had just made by chopping down and turning very large weeds and overwintered kales. The beds are full of green manure, much too full I would say. It will be interesting to see how the corn handles it.

I did not buy any compost, luckily made my own. I removed the sod, and only had two add a little of soil from the forest. Here are some before and after pics.

The before and after

After

Before

After

So nobody is interested in my results?

It looks great. I assume you have deer judging by the fence. We're all coming over for salad. Look for a crowd wearing flame suits. :-]

Since your crops are barely planted it's too early to know about results.

I have read through the posts today and have noticed Mike's location ID change from MA to none to 6a. I am primarily interested in getting a fix on the native soil in his garden. I look at the vigor of what the soil was growing before the upgrade. It looks like to me that the soil fertility might not be very high. The woods soil might give it some boost for a while. I would be adding some fertilizer, myself.

Is the soil sandy, clayey or whatever? I agree that mixing things in is a good idea, and I think some mixing in of amendments and residues is ok.

Well I do use compost. Also the picture taken was in mid April, not much growing in April even in the most fertile soil due to the freezing temps.

Looks good moraleagle! You've done a lot of work to get it to that point. However, time will show how fertile your soil really is when you harvest crops. Depending on how much compost you use and how good that compost is will be one of the determinants of your results. Personally I'd be handwatering those plants with alfalfa tea but I'm a broken record on that method so won't say more! LOL

I definitely recommend planting a cover crop to later turn over for soil amendment. There are various plants one can use - I used a seed mix available at my local feed store that had field peas, annual rye, and a fescue if memory serves. In warmer climates buckwheat is often recommended.

BTW, if you read long enough on this forum you will certainly want to apologize to pnbrown for your outburst. He is one of the more knowledgeable people on this forum. Can't say the same for some of the newer and very opinionated posters here.

Just for factual information - not all marigold flowers are edible and also not all marigolds will repel soil nematodes. Do some research and take it from reputable sources.

This is a good organic potting soil http://www.amazon.com/