encouraged! My soil is improving

[Zoe Girl]

So I have had a few warm days here in Colorado. I went to the back yard and was ready to build a raised bed. I have an old box spring in the back yard I have been attempting to pry apart or find some way to get rid of. Well that turned out to be frustrating, they really get the wood attached to the metal! Instead I moved my raised bed frame and dug in the soil. If anyone recalls last year I had soil I could barely get a inch deep into, concrete basically. This is an area I had been working on but had not gardened in at all. In any case I got a full shovel deep easily, and then dug in a bag of compost with perlite.

I have plans to put raised beds in the very worst soil areas even though those locations have grasss, but the soil is so worn out it would be better to garden or compost and then re-seed in a couple years when I move out. Now I just need some scrap wood to frame the compost area I started.

[Float On]

Good job on getting started. I remember you talking about your soil being so hard - nice to see that it took only one winter to make a difference.
I cleared off my 6 raised beds (I covered them in the fall leaves to prevent weeds). Turned the soil and tossed some of the worms to the chickens. Got one planted with peas (and covered with wire fence so the chickens don't get into it) and hope to plant the others in the next couple of days. Have to leave the girls locked up for awhile so they don't go behind me eatting the seeds I plant. They are going to be mad.

[fidgiegirl]

Awesome! You know, your post reminds me of a tip I once read for hard packed soil. It was to plant daikon radishes throughout the bed, which grow to be quite large, and do not harvest them. Let them just rot in the bed. In growing, they break up the soil. In rotting, the organic matter contributes to the health of the soil. And - easy!

[puglogic]

A huge thing people sometimes overlook here in CO is that "concrete" soil is often only concrete when it's bone-dry. I learned last summer that if you water a patch of concrete soil deeply, then wait a day to let it get just damp (not soaked), it becomes downright easy to dig in soil amendments. I dug my beds down 24 inches (argh!) and then built raised beds up almost a foot that way, by watering, waiting, digging, repeat repeat. The good thing is you only really have to do that once.

You could consider growing some kind of cover crop on the worst places, then digging it under this fall. Rye, vetch, annual clover, field peas, are all really great. Their roots do the work then you just turn them under when they die back. Then you can sheet mulch on top of it, like FidgieGirl's thread on organic materials. A lot less work!

[herbgeek]

I'd have a soil test done, and check for low magnesium. That could make a soil tight.

[RosieTR]

A huge thing people sometimes overlook here in CO is that "concrete" soil is often only concrete when it's bone-dry. I learned last summer that if you water a patch of concrete soil deeply, then wait a day to let it get just damp (not soaked), it becomes downright easy to dig in soil amendments. I dug my beds down 24 inches (argh!) and then built raised beds up almost a foot that way, by watering, waiting, digging, repeat repeat. The good thing is you only really have to do that once.

You could consider growing some kind of cover crop on the worst places, then digging it under this fall. Rye, vetch, annual clover, field peas, are all really great. Their roots do the work then you just turn them under when they die back. Then you can sheet mulch on top of it, like FidgieGirl's thread on organic materials. A lot less work!

Another CO person here. I will never complain about the soil again, after breaking a pickaxe in the Phoenix soil (and getting sparks!). But the dry hard soil esp if you have weedy grass or the ever lovely bindweed there is a PITA. I did find that after having a compost bin over one poor soil area it worked a lot better, so even if you later remove the raised beds you'll have better soil there. I was wondering about using carrots similarly to diakon radishes? I have LOT of feral carrots in the yard so wondering if I cut the stems whether they will just sort of compost in place. These are not first year carrots and thus way too tough for even using in soup. I tried.