Riseandrun
New Member
Greetings gardening enthusiasts!
I decided last year I was going to try having a garden. It wasn’t the experience I was hoping for. Pathetic yields from everything I planted. The tomatoes were small, hardly any peppers, other than that I had a cucumber vine ( about the best yielding veggie in my garden) and a zucchini plant that wasn’t too bad until it got the ”white spots”. Everything was from plants from a nursery.
I covered the whole garden in black landscaping screen to keep weeds down, and retain water. It was very pervious to water.
This year so far : I did a soil quality test and my alkaline is so high its not even on my sheet ( environmental concepts 40 test). I then did the following tests from a post on this forum that I’d look for, but don’t I want to loose what I’ve type if I search... put garden soil in a jar almost to the top, add water, shake and after An hour it should settle to 40% sand, 40% ?, 20% ? ( I should have written down what of each). I didn’t because there doesn’t look to be any difference in the whole jar. When I turned the jar upside down I get a clog of what I would describe as black clay. There has to be some soil there because the rest of my yard is grass, right?
My other test was water retention. Dig a 12x12x12 hole, fill it with water. After it drains refill and keep track of how quick it drains. I’m less than 1 inch per hour.
I get about 6-8 hours of direct sun a day, I live in a suburban setting, and my neighbor has a HUGE overgrown Maple in his yard that shades my yard a good part of the day.
I’m leaning towards just having a container garden and work on my soil. Not exactly sure what to do...
Any advice greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Kevin
I decided last year I was going to try having a garden. It wasn’t the experience I was hoping for. Pathetic yields from everything I planted. The tomatoes were small, hardly any peppers, other than that I had a cucumber vine ( about the best yielding veggie in my garden) and a zucchini plant that wasn’t too bad until it got the ”white spots”. Everything was from plants from a nursery.
I covered the whole garden in black landscaping screen to keep weeds down, and retain water. It was very pervious to water.
This year so far : I did a soil quality test and my alkaline is so high its not even on my sheet ( environmental concepts 40 test). I then did the following tests from a post on this forum that I’d look for, but don’t I want to loose what I’ve type if I search... put garden soil in a jar almost to the top, add water, shake and after An hour it should settle to 40% sand, 40% ?, 20% ? ( I should have written down what of each). I didn’t because there doesn’t look to be any difference in the whole jar. When I turned the jar upside down I get a clog of what I would describe as black clay. There has to be some soil there because the rest of my yard is grass, right?
My other test was water retention. Dig a 12x12x12 hole, fill it with water. After it drains refill and keep track of how quick it drains. I’m less than 1 inch per hour.
I get about 6-8 hours of direct sun a day, I live in a suburban setting, and my neighbor has a HUGE overgrown Maple in his yard that shades my yard a good part of the day.
I’m leaning towards just having a container garden and work on my soil. Not exactly sure what to do...
Any advice greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Kevin
