CREATING BEDS AND BORDERS

Ok, assuming you’ve found your soil type and texture the last thing to check is drainage. Poor drainage can kill plants very quickly so it’s important to know if you have a problem. Dig a hole about two feet deep in your chosen plot and fill it with water; after it drains refill it. Check back in about an hour – if there’s still water in the hole, you have a drainage problem.  That means you will have to amend your soil to a deeper level or use raised beds, which we will cover later in the post. Poor drainage is usually caused by hardpan – a thin to thick layer under the top soil that is virtually impermeable. It can occur naturally, as it does in my area of the southwest, where it’s called caliche, or because builders have put down a layer of soil and driven heavy equipment over it while working on the site. If the hardpan is thin you might be able to have the area plowed or break through it with an augur in the spots you want to plant; you will need to work in lots of organic material to improve it but it can be done. If it’s thick, as it can be here – we sometimes have to use a tool called a sharpshooter – you would probably have to hire a contractor to install a subsurface drainage system. In that case, raised beds would be both easier and cheaper unless you’re planting acreage.

So once the soil type and texture are known and you  know what kind of drainage you have and what kind of amendments you’ll need to add – time to get to the actual work. Assemble your tools – spade and fork would be perfect – your amendments and fertilizer and brace yourself.

OH, MY ACHIN’ BACK

The best method for doing this is called double digging or double trenching.  Dig a trench about a spade blade deep and about a foot wide on one side of your plot of ground and pile the dirt to the side away from the plot. Loosen the soil in the bottom of the trench with your spade or fork and dig another trench next to the first one. Put the dirt from the second trench into the first trench, mixing in  your sand and/or organic matter and a good all purpose organic fertilizer – 5-10-10 is a good all around fertilizer. And yes, we will be discussing what those numbers mean.

Continue across the plot digging trenches and filling them – when you get to the last one, fill it with some of the dirt  from the first trench and your amendments and you can go take a nap. Use the left over dirt to fill in holes in your lawn or make mudballs to throw at neighbors you don’t like.

I know this sounds like a lot of work. Hell, it is a lot of work. But you only have to do it once – if you skip this step you’ll be fighting with your soil for all the years to come. Better to do it right the first time. Of course if you already have good soil, none of this is necessary and I’m really jealous.

For borders, which are beds next to buildings, walkways,driveways, etc. this is almost mandatory; for stand-alone beds there’s an easier way. Raised beds. If you don’t already have beds the size you want or you have really yucky dirt or you just want to do it the easy way raised beds are the best answer. They must be built with a weather resistant wood – NOT pressure treated, that stuff is toxic – like cedar and the lumber can be a bit pricey. If you have any carpentry skills you can do it yourself – you’re just building a simple rectangle (or square). You can also buy kits at many garden centers and from catalogs like Gardener’s Supply Company. Then order the amount of perfect dirt you need or buy some top soil and mix it with sharp sand and compost yourself and voila! – instant flower bed or vegetable patch.

Remember not to make your bed impossible to work in by not leaving room for you to get around and weed, mulch, harvest, hide out, whatever. With a border, don’t make it so wide you can’t get to the back of the border to do necessary work. Unless you have tiny munchkins to do it for you.