I’m going to start this thread as I’m building up my no till bed for spring. I have a flat, sunk in area where the former owner had an above ground pool and it’s about the only flat spot on this place. There is a layer of sand at the bottom and I’ve been “composting in place” for months now but I’m building it up with leaves now. I will have pics and measurements soon. Any advice is welcome and appreciated. (Maybe I should have done this as a journal?) Thanks.
I think you are definitely off to a good start. Composting in place should lure in worms and get the micros going. Leaves will build up some nice tilth to the soil. Double gold stars! Cheers Os
Thanks @Organic sinse, I used the bed for my bottomless pots and put worms in as I found them in the leaf piles. My goal is to get it filled in as much as I can by New Years and let it go until April or so. I figure (but may be wrong) that if I don’t get it full by then I’ll just use the pots there and keep adding. I’ve got a lot of leaves and a few rotting logs in the ditches and woods
I make compost piles that I don’t turn and I’ve made in the past piles you turned quite often. I think if you want to have something usable by spring, particularly with this cold winter, if you turned it often, it may be workable by April.
key is carbon to nitrogen ratio to get the best microbial activity also remember the activity during late spring is when most microbials are working overtime, using things like Grass clippings for nitrogen and unpainted cardboard boxes broken down or shredded adds carbon, and if placed on the ground flat will bring in alot of worms to get the composting carbon from the cardboard.
Everything has died out and I’ve still got a mess but this is the bed. I do have a couple of compost bins going (not pictured) as well.
I saw over in the Vegetable gardening thread, Jerry laying down plain old corrugated cardboard all over the garden to break down over the winter. He laid it down thick. I think that's ssim 's advice is great. cheers os
I agree @Organic sinse, I’m saving cardboard and hoping to pick up more over the holidays. I remember @jerry111165 hitting on a load of it near a store.
I’m hoping that as I build this up the water will be absorbed and/or drain off, am I correct or asking for trouble here? There is a layer of sand under here from the above ground pool and I wonder if I should dig a little trench here (but hope not) to drain this excess or just keep adding the leaves and aged wood. I’m behind as I intended to have this more full by now but I’ve been concentrating on my compost bins.
i was hoping another person who has more experience outdoors would give ya some advice but i think you are asking for trouble. that's gotta be disappointing.
That’s my concern. This is a long term project so I was hoping I could Built it slow and essentially “make a hill” to help it drain. I haven’t had issues with the raised pots without bottoms yet and I’m getting a lot of rain at once so I’m just fishing I guess.
their is a method to growing in swamps, you have to make a wick system and have your pot on a platform above the water it is a great way to get some nutes, but 1 problem is pH since really swampy water is acidic.
i tried to make raised beds and i bought some topsoil that was more like sand. ditch weeds you'd find on the side of the road started growing and that was about 4-5 years ago. every year i add lots of compost and work the soil. i've dumped old soil from my cannabis in there and tried to mix it up. i've added leaves, and just about anything to help. its better but SUCKS in comparison to how it used to be. its been a real learning experience on how lucky i was having good soil and i didn't realize what it takes to build soil structure.
I have a few very long posts from Dr Elaine Ingham that might be of help to you. she did an open q&a with people needing help in similar situations such as yourself.
Before I started building piles on pallets, my piles would get pretty flooded every spring and spend quite some time in standing water. In the end all was good. Come summer every plant within the wet spot would really thrive, whether it was dandelions, clover, or grass. At some point, I would scratch in a ditch to help with drainage. Even a little ditch filled in with rocks 'French drain' style can work really well. cheers os
Small bark nuggets and or bark fines are just about the fastest and cheapest way to do what you want. Mix some in and mulch some. cheers os
All of the above posts have eased my mind, many thanks. I’ve got just about of unlimited supply of materials like leaves and aged wood nuggets. I knew from the start that this could be a multi year project. I don’t think the pic shows it but the water is mainly pooling on one end of the bed. I was thinking too of maybe getting some hay or straw, maybe try some planting in the straw, but mainly adding that in to the bed.
IMO I think you need to take care of your water problem. I don't think building it up is gonna cure your problem. Could it be that the sand under the pool is so compacted that it won't allow the water to drain? Or what's under the sand?
I’m sure it’s just rock hard southern clay dirt under the sand and I’ve thought about aerating since it does make sense that the sand could be compacted with that big pool being on it for so long. My notion of slowly building it up was to eventually have some runoff. The entire yard has a slight slope, which I use the containers and SIPs to compensate.