I have a largish garden which slopes down away from the house. I can't
afford to terrace the whole lot so I'm doing it myself in bits.

The bit I'm working on at the moment is going to be a 6' x 4' bed containing
plants that form low mounds and/or grow horizontally. The soil seems quite
heavy & contains lots of chalk (I'm in Kent) - I've dug out some bits that
are 7 inches across. I've skimmed off the grass, dug out all the weeds that
I could see, flattened quite a few leatherjackets, plucked up the courage to
move the worms out of harms way and turned the top 5 inches of soil over
(well, should finish the turning this weekend if it stays dryish).

So.... when I've finished the actual digging & levelling bit - should I be
digging in compost to the whole bed or can I just add it where needed for
the plants? Should I add anything else to the soil to improve it.

Advice/suggestions eagerly awaited !

Thanks,

Pam

"Pam Morris" wrote in
:

So.... when I've finished the actual digging & levelling bit - should
I be digging in compost to the whole bed or can I just add it where
needed for the plants? Should I add anything else to the soil to
improve it.

Not sure my advice is expert, but I'll give it a go.

For a 6x4 bed you really need to dig in whatever you are adding to it all
over - it isn't really big enough to do in bits. Garden compost is good,
or well-rotted cow or horse manure. You don't need to buy bags of compost
from the garden centre for this - rotted lawn cuttings and hedge clippings
are just as good as soil conditioners, and a lot cheaper.

If the digging-in seems like a lot of work, you can mulch instead, and
allow all those worms to do the digging for you. The more mulching you do,
the better your soil will get, until you end up growing on layers of lovely
brown rotted-down mulch!

I mulch shrubs and robust perennials with anything that comes along - fresh
chopped weeds, cut grass, hedge clippings, newspaper - anything but the
roots of persistent weeds.

If you are planning to plant seeds direct in the soil, though, you will
need to use properly-rotted compost and dig it in.

I am impatient, so I plant seeds in pots and plant them out into my mulched
beds as soon as the plants are big enough not to get buried under the
mulch, or sat on by cats.

Victoria

"Pam Morris" wrote in message
...
I have a largish garden which slopes down away from the house. I can't
afford to terrace the whole lot so I'm doing it myself in bits.

The bit I'm working on at the moment is going to be a 6' x 4' bed
containing
plants that form low mounds and/or grow horizontally.

Think about a single "exclamation point" to contrast with these...



So.... when I've finished the actual digging & levelling bit - should I
be
digging in compost to the whole bed or can I just add it where needed for
the plants? Should I add anything else to the soil to improve it.

Advice/suggestions eagerly awaited !


Council of perfection: Spread 6 inches of compost/manure over the whole area
and double-dig in then add more for each plant.

Life's too short approach: Spread pelleted chicken muck over the area, fork
in. For each plant, dig a hole 2*pot size. Shovel in a spadeful of
compost/manure, and another over the soil that will go back in the hole,
rake back and tread down. When finished give the whole area a thick mulch of
compost/manure and let the worms do the hard work.



pk

Council of perfection: Spread 6 inches of compost/manure over the whole
area
and double-dig in then add more for each plant.

I thought that you were not supposed to double dig on chalk as it brought
the chalk up to the surface? Also I'd be careful about using too much
chicken manure as I used that and ended up with no flowers as (in theory)
the chicken manure had produced a high level of nitrogen - maybe some other
kind of manure woudl be better?
Hayley