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Thread: New garden

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    Dinky Dau omegabrock's Avatar
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    New garden

    Is it hard to take a wooded area and turn it to a garden area? I mean soil and ground, not clearing it out. I would assume the ground would have to be at least decently fertile. Click image for larger version. 

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    Super Moderator Sparkyprep's Avatar
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    Not necessarily. The trees may have stripped the topsoil of nutrients. It's tough to say. Also, clearing the area, and grubbing out all the existing roots will be a pain.

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    Dinky Dau omegabrock's Avatar
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    Yeah but I was thinking that I could start clearing when I started the garden. I'm going to be starting real small because I have never even played a flower before...slowly working up in size as I get more comfortable

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    Little Miss Chatterbox
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    You are going to need a lot of steer or horse "fertilizer" to add to the soil and probably some lime to return it to a neutral state PH wise. The soil around conifers (most evergreen trees) is very acidic and while blue-berries love it most veggies won't do well in soil that acidic. You can also use rabbit fertilizer but don't use chicken fertilizer to grow crops that need to flower to produce the edibles. I would stick with steer and/or horse manure and add enough lime to bring the soil back to neutral about six months to a year before you plant. You probably won't need to add any peatmoss or other compost to break the soil up because there will be lots of vegetable matter in the soil from years of needles dropping on it.

    Get a PH test kit and be prepared to spend money on fertilizer and lime. The forest floor is very low in nutrients so you will need to add them. You might also invest in some worms or find some mushroom mat and spread that in your garden area. It breaks down any hydrocarbon (plant, animal, and chemical) into good usable soil. It even works on used motor oil to break it down to the point where other plants can grow well in the previously "contaminated" soil.
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    omegabrock (10-17-2014)

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    Dinky Dau omegabrock's Avatar
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    So when you say a lot, I don't assume 1 horse wouldn't produce a lot. There are a few different places with different terrain - some wooded, some cleared wooded, some grassy and some bare - I was just thinking this area because there is a natural rain drainage that a few other properties drain through passed this area, if that makes sense. I figured it would be good for the water, would cut down on that aspect I might have to provide water to. I might just carve a path out through it straight back to a different cleared out area and test it.

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    Dinky Dau omegabrock's Avatar
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    That's just assuming the time it would take to get the wooded area crop ready would take way a lot longer considering you said use the lime 6 months out, I might be too optimistic but was hoping I would get something started in around 6 months

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    Little Miss Chatterbox
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    If you start getting the ground ready now it will be ready to plant this spring. You can't add natual fertilizer and put the plants in it - they will burn up from the high nitrate content - although you might get away with it if you use only horse manure. Steer manure is too hot for fresh planting. One horse might be enough for a small garden and you could slowly increase the area as the soil "sweetens". You will definitely need the PH test kit though so get that first.
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    Dinky Dau omegabrock's Avatar
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    Ok awesome, yeah I will get the test kit and see what I'm working with from the start. I'll only have 1 horse for a while and I plan on a small area to start. Still not sure how big but not more than a couple squared feet...which reminds me, have ou heard of the square foot gardening?

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    Little Miss Chatterbox
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    I have probably heard of everything from the "postage stamp" garden to vertical "gardens" but I will tell you that intensive gardening requires rotation and a lot of fertilizer. The rotation is needed to keep out blights and insect damage and the fertilizer is what feeds the plants. The more plants you grow the more fertilizer it takes. There are some plants that put nitrogen back into the soil, they are called nitrogen fixators but most of them dont put in enough for intensive growing and you have to add neutrients anyway. If you grow leafy veggies, like lettuce, cabage and spinach then you will want to add some metals into the soil too. Iron, calcium, and zinc are the major ones but magnesium and selenium are important too. The selenium is probably present in the soil of forest land but magnesium is hit and miss. Why the metals? Leafy plants are the best sources of dietary metals if the metals are present in the soil. They are also good sources of the water vitamins like C and B vitamins.
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    Dinky Dau omegabrock's Avatar
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    Hmm...so maybe to do certain things i would want to can and store more quantities in the square foot and everything else in the normal one...probably later down the road though

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