I dug 4 holes today out of 10 planned, going to buy 15 1.5cu ft bags of fox farm ocean forest to fill them in with. So, of course that is very expensive to buy so many bags, which is why I am worried about just dumping this soil into these holes I dug, as I discovered it is very "wet" earth. So I don't know if this is a good thing, or a bad thing for my plants. Part of me wants to think that my plants would have too much water, and the other half is thinking this is good because I won't have to water as much. I was thinking of lining it with plastic bags with some holes poked in them. They're about 13 gallon holes. Is this going to hamper the soil I bring in any? I've always grown in buckets outside, so help please!
Do you know what kind of soil it is, heavy clay etc, that always helps. My personal opinion is to take a gallon of water and dump it in the hole and then see how long it takes to drain. If it drains within 10 minutes add some peat to the soil or perlite to help aerate it and keep the moisture in. Mulch on top of your holes also helps with keeping the moisture in and will reduce your watering times. If it takes 15-30 minutes I'd throw in some lava rocks, perlite/vermiculite and mulch the top. Probably a good idea to use some builder's sand as well and put a mound in the bottom of your hole, go look up how to dig a hole to plant a tree and you'll see the best method to keep the stagnant water in your holes away from your roots. Anything over 30 minutes is poorly draining soil so you will have to be careful to not let your plants drown if it rains heavy or your holes don't drain fast enough. Anything over 20 minutes I'd throw a mix of perlite and coco coir in there to help and some builder's sand to help improve the drainage, keep testing your soil when you add the amendments to make sure it drains well cause otherwise your plants just drown. I had a 90% clay soil so it was very poor drainage, I took some river sand, threw some perlite in with my organic soil and some coco coir and it went from draining in one hour to around 15 minutes. I also used a mound in the bottom of the hole and made a semi mound above ground to place my plants in to help give them room to stay away from any stagnant water that may still be present in the bottom of my holes. Once my plants hit the mound at the bottom of the hole they should be ok to develop very strong roots in the clay. There's a lot of info on here, search for posts by OldPork and Corto Malteze on soil amendments and different mixes they have tons of great info! Good luck!
Awesome, thanks! +K It's probably 80 to 90% clay. It's looks like gray mud but it's very thick and heavy like clay. Dries to be a sort of light brown. I'll try pouring a gallon of water in and checking the drain time. Thanks again!