Best soil- no compost/wood products etc?

[Oldiron]

Meadowlark ,I'm in sw Va probably will have frost in Oct. , and plant potatoes in March ,when do you think I should till it in?

 

[Meadowlark]

Meadowlark ,I'm in sw Va probably will have frost in Oct. , and plant potatoes in March ,when do you think I should till it in?

Probably a couple of weeks before potato panting.

 

[big rockpile]

I've started using Sunshine 4 and this will drive you nuts because it is to always be wet.

It don't have any nutrients so I add right off the start.

Just started using it and have found it great.

As for it being wet it was explained to me like this you take a sopping wet Sponge, wring it out, it will still be wet.

big rockpile

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Sand for drainage is not the best, it is silicone particles, heavy and non-porous. I crush fired clay and use it, light and porous. My daughter who grows in pots on a concrete back yard says the earth she gets in plants from me is always the best, she can tell it by the the little orange bits it has in it, that's the fired clay.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Sand for drainage is not the best, it is silicone particles, heavy and non-porous. I crush fired clay and use it, light and porous. My daughter who grows in pots on a concrete back yard says the earth she gets in plants from me is always the best, she can tell it by the the little orange bits it has in it, that's the fired clay.

Char works good too but like firing clay takes a number of years and the free resources from which to make it.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Char works good too but like firing clay takes a number of years and the free resources from which to make it.

Firing clay is actually pretty quick, it is surprising how much difference it makes taking a bucket full of clay lumps out of a bed. I have been working over a bed about 15ft by 2 feet that was terrible when I started, raked up piles and put them through the riddle and got about three buckets threequarters full (My days of filling buckets to the top are past) It was horrible when I started and now looks quite reasonable, it will look much better with fired clay and compost added, and I am sure as I hoe I will turn up more lumps in the future, but at about a bucket of clay taken for every 10 square feet it has gone from horrid to quite nice looking.
Wood is everywhere, in skips, in laybys, even lying in the side of the road, keep your eyes open and it doesn't take long to find enough for a good fire, that's how I filled my HK pits, and that was quite a lot of wood.
Mind, if I didn't have the experience of trying it I would probably agree with you, it surprised me how quick and effective it is, and, unlike adding stuff that rots away, once it has been done it is done.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Firing clay is actually pretty quick, it is surprising how much difference it makes taking a bucket full of clay lumps out of a bed. I have been working over a bed about 15ft by 2 feet that was terrible when I started, raked up piles and put them through the riddle and got about three buckets threequarters full (My days of filling buckets to the top are past) It was horrible when I started and now looks quite reasonable, it will look much better with fired clay and compost added, and I am sure as I hoe I will turn up more lumps in the future, but at about a bucket of clay taken for every 10 square feet it has gone from horrid to quite nice looking.
Wood is everywhere, in skips, in laybys, even lying in the side of the road, keep your eyes open and it doesn't take long to find enough for a good fire, that's how I filled my HK pits, and that was quite a lot of wood.
Mind, if I didn't have the experience of trying it I would probably agree with you, it surprised me how quick and effective it is, and, unlike adding stuff that rots away, once it has been done it is done.

That is what led me to char, the continual disappearance of any form of mulching I ever did. But once reduced to carbon the wood remains stay in the soil.

 

[Oldiron]

I have a friend that deals in cattle I can get manure when he cleans out his barns but some cows he buys is sick and he doctors them back to health but some don't make it whats you all thoughts on using?

 

[Meadowlark]

I have a friend that deals in cattle I can get manure when he cleans out his barns but some cows he buys is sick and he doctors them back to health but some don't make it whats you all thoughts on using?

I'd probably use it...it isn't likely they died from herbicide residuals...but I'd use it only after composting it thoroughly for at least a year. Get those temps up around 180 deg. in the pile and it should be good to go.

But I would ask the friend if he feeds any hay treated with herbicides. That would bother me a lot more than a sick cow every now and then.

 

[Oldiron]

thanks Meadolark, ,he also has some thats piled up thats been laying a couple years outside.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

he also has some thats piled up thats been laying a couple years outside.

That sounds great.
I misunderstood the OP for a second, It took me back to an autobiogra0phy of a gardener who used to be on the radio years ago. He started as an apprentice at the 'big house' before WW1 and his first job was to dig a pit where they were planning a new bed so they could bury a cow that had died on the farm.