Long story short - I moved from a country where there’s an abundance of black soil to a country with a dry climate and not much black soil. Not only that, I moved from an apartment to a house with plenty of land. I believe strongly that growing my own produce is the way to go, but sadly I lack a lot of skill.
What I want to do is to plant a few plants, bushes and trees to get started with gardening, but I’m not sure whether the types that I want to plant will take well to the soil.
So the first logical step in my mind is to figure out what kind of a soil I’ve got and what it’s well suited for and can I make it work for some things that it might not be ideal for.
That’s why I was super hyped when I found this community, but it looks like people here are mostly posting articles and the discussions are more on the specialist/scientific side, so I hope my question doesn’t stick out as unwanted.
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No worries about the compost, haha. I haven’t started making it here, but I’ve lived with compost piles my whole life (that I haven’t spent in an apartment). That’s one of the rare things that I know about. Just chug a leftover veggie/fruit in a pile and let it steam. Got that. 🫡
I’m afraid I might need to buy some if it turns out that the one in the backyard isn’t good enough. The specifics of the location don’t really allow for permanent planning.
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you can always use raised beds
edible acres is an accessible and easy source to start with
search for “edible acres raised beds” to see all of his related videos on google video
I’ve always wanted to try raised beds and I was planning to use those in the garden in front of the house. There the soil is screwed completely and barely anything grows. For the back I would prefer just stickin’ everything in the ground, but I’ll see. It will be a year for experiments.
Thank you for the link!
🤜🤛
I don’t know much about gardening, and this is something that just came to mind, so take this as the half formed idea that it is.
I wonder how well using the soil from a raised planter would be at making the garden soil better. For example, if you used raised planters for a year or two, then mixed the soil from them into the soil in the garden. Maybe doing a section of the garden at a time and completing it over a number of years. Any compost you make would help too.
I know that obviously putting nutrients into the soil is going to be good for growing plants, but I don’t know how helpful it would be if you could only do part of the garden at a time.
Hm, wouldn’t it make more sense to mix the regular garden soil with the soil in the raised beds? My thinking is - if plants take the nutrients from the soil and a raised bed is essentially a closed system then dumping that soil into the garden would create less fertile patches.
But this is from one person who doesn’t know much about gardening to another 😅
Where do you live? I would ask the neighbours, because one of them will know which lokal plants are going well. Lokal plants are every time the best.
I’m a Fan of mixing bought soil with the soil of the garden. And I’m making my own soil with the bokashi System.
I’ll check the bokashi system. I was wondering about mixing soil too. Good to know that that’s a legit practice.
A part of my garden seems well suited for planting, lots of grass, it’s overgrown and hasn’t been used in many years. I’m particularly interested in getting blackcurrant bushes to grow here and I know they like dampness which is a bit of a problem where I live (European part of the Mediterranean). I’m a huge fan of berries, but barely any grow here that I’m aware of. For the rest of the garden I’m definitely aiming for natives.
I have adapted my text again and run it through a translation programme, as my English has room for improvement.
I would ask the neighbours which native plants thrive well. Native plants are always the best.
As far as I know, blackcurrant bushes are not intended for warm climates. Maybe you can protect their south side with small trees for shade and put them a little lower. Red grapes are probably better suited.
I’m a fan of mixing bought humus with the soil from the garden. This saves money and the native plants cope better with the soil they are used to.
In addition, I make my own soil with a compost heap and something similar to an upstream bokashi system. To keep rats out, all the kitchen scraps go into one of two 50 litre barrels with lids next to the compost heap. A bit of grass clippings in between speeds up the process. When one barrel is full, I fill the second barrel. When the second barrel is full, I empty the first barrel into the compost heap. The rats no longer like this half-composted waste and the whole thing turns into humus much more quickly.
