Buying a garden in the name of sanity
I made a decision yesterday and it felt so good. It’s a step in the direction of filling my pantry and freezer with my own food. It will cost more money than my original plan, and could be considered the easy way out. But I’ve recently discovered that laziness is the doorway to productivity. Overdoing it on every front simply makes me frozen and unable to accomplish anything all the way, so I’m not going to take the slow route with my vegetable gardens any more.
The lasagna beds didn’t work very well for me last year. They dried out too quickly and don’t even get me started about how much the slugs loved them. So I started these other two big lasagna beds down along the driveway in full sun. Right now they’re just lightly mulched leaves about four inches deep. I still have to order manure and get more straw and pull more leaves down from the piles in the woods, plus mix in some grass clippings with the first few mowings in spring. I also have all of that wonderful chicken poop straw to work with, but think I’ll be adding that to the beds next door.
But I want dirt. I want dirt in that American instant gratification kind of way. I don’t want to wait the few years it takes for the lasagna method to turn into dirt and in the meantime, it’s a crap shoot as to whether I’ve got the right balance, enough materials or the time and patience to deal with figuring it out. The ground is not tillable. It’s heavy yellow cement-like clay with gravel and large shelves of rock. What to do? Well, it occurred to me yesterday that I can have topsoil delivered to the house. I know. Duh. As a matter of fact, a local landscaping company sells topsoil with compost mixed in for vegetable gardens. For about $175 I can get enough to put a six inch layer on top of all of my lasagna beds and have some for the herb garden. So with that and the manure and straw, I’ll have about $250 invested in the garden base. But I’m only spending about $20 on seed this year and then the two pear trees.
Of course, I’m worried about bringing more disease onto the land. If any of you other gardeners have any advice on bringing soil in, I’d sure appreciate it.
And then? When it’s all set up and neatly spread? Then I am going to grow some food, people.
"Autumn is the eternal corrective. It is ripeness and color and a time of maturity; but it is also breadth, and depth, and distance. What man can stand with autumn on a hilltop and fail to see the span of his world and the meaning of the rolling hills that reach to the far horizon?"
~Hal Borland
February 8th, 2008 at 7:02 am
Do it.
Worrying about bringing disease on to the land is spent energy.
All I have is clay. Yes, I augment like a crazy person with all kinds of organics, but if it wasn’t for my truckloads of topsoil that I have delivered to the property every time I make new garden beds, I wouldn’t be gardening. I have noticed differences in the soil deliveries, but not in the result.
February 8th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Hey El, thanks for the encouragement. I just read too many reports about bad soil brought in. But I’ll amend like crazy as you say… and stop worrying about it right this minute. Darn it, it’s snowing. I want to order it today. Winter, go away now please. Or stay and be winter for real instead of almost winter interspersed with summer.
February 8th, 2008 at 8:57 am
We also added bags of topsoil to our garden last year because we had just moved into the house and had lousy soil. I didn’t notice any additional diseases or problems. Actually the garden did great. This year I ordered about $250 worth of seeds. But I figured for 9 months of food that really isn’t bad. Next year I plan on growing ALOT so I can put some food up for winter. These winter food bills just kill me.
February 8th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Sounds very smart! Think of the labor saved!!
February 8th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Topsoil is really the best way to go, especially as it’s not that expensive - as belle points out. I don’t think you have to worry about disease or contamination. Our local community victory garden has compost and topsoil mixes delivered each year and there’s never a sign of disease in the resulting, magnificent plants.
For slugs, though, you can try an old fix. Plant onions and garlic around the perimeter of your beds and the slugs won’t come in from the surrounding areas.
Love your site, by the way. big hug, Allan
February 8th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Definitely do it! We just got a lecture in my class yesterday about lasagna gardening and I like the idea and I plan to give it a shot in an area I’m not ready to develop yet, but I don’t think it’s cheating to get soil delivered. My soil is solid clay too and impossible to work with on it’s own, the only way to garden in my yard is with raised beds. Get the soil. It’s not cheating. If you have a compost heap that you use you’re still composting you’re just not doing it directly on your beds.
February 8th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
We are totally buying dirt this year. We live in Arkansas and it is mostly rocks… rocks. You can’t garden in rocks. So, I am saving $200 bucks or so for dirt. So DO IT… by yourself some dirt!
February 8th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
If you don’t have great soil, bringing some in is a good investment. It gives you an immediate return in production and you can amend it with your compost. My soil was complete crap, there’s no way the garden would have thrived in the stony clay I started with.
February 8th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
I’m not even going to try and explain what I thought lasagna gardening was.
I love when you start talking about what’s going in the ground. More, please.
February 9th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I think it was Eco-Mama that had a post up a while ago about “being green enough.” She highlighted how some folks (she didn’t go all the way and call them solipsistic jackasses, but I will) feel it is appropriate to criticize others for not doing enough. There is so much bullshit pressure out there to do things a specific way that it inevitably creates unnecessary guilt when “our lives” don’t permit it. This may be a stretch, but the whole factioned thing reminds me of the foolishness of religious denominations; their goals are the same, but they bitch at one another about how they choose to get there.
I can’t wait to see what you accomplish with your imported dirt.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I take the really lazy method. I buy a share in a local organic farm. For a certain price you get fresh veggies all season long.
February 9th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Make your roots happy. You will want to incorporate the new garden soil (dirt is a dirty word) into the base soil. If you only have one tool for your home garden beds, invest in a good quality spading fork. Dig deep and the roots will love you.
February 10th, 2008 at 1:10 am
I have organic topsoil delivered from my local nursery and I say do it and do it now! It’s made all the difference in my gardening practices. I made a new compost bin last spring out of cedar where I keep my “black gold” soil and I use it to ammend as needed.