Ways to build up your soil for planting?

[Evolver]

One thing that Justa and I did when we first started our raised beds is we grew a cover crop of Sunn Hemp to add biomass, fixate the soil and add "green manure".

It was five and a half weeks old and 60" tall.

http://i572.photobucket.com/albums/ss162/xplore2c/DSCF6960.jpg

I ended up using the hedge trimmers and they worked great!. I started at the top and worked my way down 5" at a time.

http://i572.photobucket.com/albums/ss162/xplore2c/DSCF6963.jpg

In 10 min per box they were down.

http://i572.photobucket.com/albums/ss162/xplore2c/DSCF6965.jpg

As you can see... The inspector was back to Blue Stake for soaker hoses and to make sure they are ready to come down.

I let them set in the boxes to wilt for three days then turn under.

http://i572.photobucket.com/albums/ss162/xplore2c/DSCF6967.jpg


We waited two weeks then planted are first veggies.



http://i572.photobucket.com/albums/ss162/xplore2c/DSCF6993.jpg



The farthest way bed was my fist attempt of using plastic mulch for the tomatoes but it didn't work out too good.





What else can be done to build up the soil?

[ak474u]

Table scraps as compost, my granddad used to put the vegetable scraps, and egg shells, coffee grounds in an old blender in the garage and purée them for compost. Obviously leaves and such work well too.

[4suchatimeasthis]

Nice looking beds! Cute dog too, lol.

Second on the table scraps. We always did that, growing up, dumped the scrap bucket into the garden. It would get tilled in and that was that.

[Evolver]

A plus about adding egg shells... I had a hell of a time with blossom end rot on my tomatoes until I started using egg shells that I ran threw a coffee grinder and dusted the the hole with it before planting the tomato. I haven't had one case of end rot since.

[bacpacker]

Great tip on the egg shells. BER is my biggest trouble with tomatos (other than hail). I will give that a shot this spring.

A couple of things I use to build the soil (and hold it in place). I will plant a buckwheat cover crop in unused portions, let it grow for around 6 weeks and cut it right before it goes to seed, then turn it under after sitting down for about a week. Sometimes I do multiple crops during the summer.

The other crop I have tried is Annual Rye grass sown in the fall and turned in the late winter.

Another I want to try in clover, may do a section of one spot this spring and follow it with some fall crops.

[Evolver]

BP... You have plenty of egg shells I'm sure!

[bacpacker]

Sure do, plus my mom saves all hers for us. We have been crushing them and feed them to the chickens. We will be saving for the tomatos for a while now. My step dad has some problems with BER as well, so I'm sure he will give it a try. Thanks again.