Subject: Re: Raised vegetable garden
Newsgroups: triangle.gardens

In article <[email-masked]>,
Michael Dudek <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Hello, I have just moved into Cary from the Northeast (Upstate NY)
>and have found that the gardening season begins quite a bit earlier
>around here.  I would like to have a small garden but the red clay
>which covers our backyard does not seem well suited for vegetables.
>I was originally planning on raised beds using treated timber but it
>has been pointed out to me that the chemicals in this wood would not
>suitable for vegetables.  Does anyone here have any suggestions on
>what has worked for them?  Is it possible to add enough organics to
>the clay to make it vegetable friendly?  Any advice or experiences
>any other fellow gardeners could provide would be greatly appreciated.
>Thanks
>
>Mike Dudek
>[email-masked]

Yes. Horse manure and sometimes cow manure are readily available as is 
baled hay, fresh or spoiled (sold cheap for landscape use). These materials
may be added to your garden to give it greater tilth. Ideally, you
would plow or hand spade (more effective than rototilling) your soil in late 
Fall for it to go through freeze-thaw cycles during winter and become 
loose, silty and friable by Spring. You would then add composted 
manure/leaves/weeds/grass, rock dusts from local quarries (to 
remineralize your soil), rock phosphate, greensand, blood meal, 
cottonseed meal, etc. to give it still more tilth and fertility. Lime 
sparingly with high calcium lime or a combination of dolomitic lime and 
"feed" lime (usually ground shell meal). Feed the microbes and insects 
and they, in turn, will tilth your soil and feed your plants.

Since it is now Spring and you're wondering how to deal with Carolina
red clay do this:

Forget containing your garden beds unless absolutely necessary & use
masonry products, cedar, cypress or redwood then, if possible.. 

Use a digging fork and/or spade fork and shovel to loosen your soil.
Try to penetrate the ground at least 10 inches and break loose large chunks
without turning them over or inverting them. Use a shovel, hoe or mattock 
to reduce the large chunks to smaller ones. Do this as deep as is needed
to create a usable seedbed and provide some initial tilth to soil - humus,
microbes, earthworms and various insects will finish this job. 
Then add your compost, manure, rock powders, etc. hand tilling them to a 
depth of 4-8". Be sure to mulch your beds and add compost to them 
periodically. You can eventually use the "no-till" method leaving mulch 
and compost in place and planting through it. You may occasionally need 
to "tilth" the beds (Alan Chadwick style) with a digging fork to loosen 
things up to provide aeration and help percolation of water and nutrients.

Take a shovel and excavate narrow walkways wide enough for a 
wheelbarrow to pass through your prepared garden soil leaving
raised planting beds between that measure 38-48 inches across (this 
measurement is derived from the distance a gardener can comfortably
reach forward from a squatting or bending position without tipping over
- and stepping on the bed to regain balance); pile the soil taken 
from the walkways onto the adjoining beds to add height and give greater 
aeration and drainage.

This method works very well; the organic matter, microorganisms and rock 
powders change the soil rapidly and add considerable tilth and fertility 
in a short time. Managed this way, your soil will improve steadily year 
after year.

If you have the time you can simply double dig all your raised beds.
The book by John Jeavons, "HOW TO GROW MORE VEGETABLES Than You Thought 
Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine" and all of Eliot Coleman's
books offer explanations of this gardening method. These are excellent
works for beginning gardeners in any locale.

Lawrence London
biointensive organic microfarmer
Venaura Farm
Chapel Hill, N.C.