I’ve noticed the soil in our raised beds have dropped about 6 inches. I’m wondering now, should I add just more compost and have a soil tested, or mix more compost and soil/potting soil, mix it into what’s there now, to bring it up to desired level then have it tested. Should I add epson salt to the mix? Right now the compost has horse litter and llama pellets in it, and we’ll be getting some chicken litter shortly.
If it were me I would take soil samples and have it tested first. Then add the recommended additions and add in the compost. More Compost can only help IMO.
You sound like you’re adding a LOT of nitrogen. Get the soil test.
I have no idea.
For Christmas I gave my daughter-in-law an 8’ x 12’ x 12” cedar raised plsnter. Imagine my son and I will put it together next month, fill it in, and plant stuff, mostly from seed I’ve grown indoors. No doubt the filler will settle.
Planted last Fall and growing nicely through the Winter in my little garden are broccoli, cabbage,snap and snow peas, garlic (first time and doing really well), and several hundred Texas Sweet and Red onions, in hand-turned amended soil.
We’re in what passes for the rainy season in San Antonio. When I pick onions (every other one so the alternates grow full size)the soil is so compacted about a quarter break off at ground level and I dig the bulbs up with my fingers. This is in over several years’ well amended soil.
I do not compost. Not from kitchen or yard, anyway. I cheat. I buy liquid compost and drench every inch of my little garden before I transplant . . . which will probably be in about four weeks . . . I say, crossing fingers.
Others posting in this thread are far more experienced and more successful than me, but except for the whims of nature (weather: too much or too little rain; too cold; or, too hot) my results have been rather good for a backyard gardner. Biggest problem has been bugs, pests and plant disease. I’m still figuring out how to defeat those three.
When my daughter-in-law’s brand new raised garden settles, I suppose we’ll drench it with store-bought liquid compost and fill it in with with store-bought garden soil. In the Fall, I imagine we’ll hand turn the soil, give it a liquid compost bath, add a bag or two of pre-fertilized garden soil, and see what happens.
My garden space consists of two in-ground sections: one about 12’ x 25’; one 4’ x 8’; 15 15-gallon pots (5 growing Mexican Lime, Mandarin Orange, Meyer Lemon and a really pitiful avocado tree which does not produce fruit, yet, but refuses to die); 10 5-gallon buckets; and 4 Earth Boxes (though folks in the thread can tell you how to make your own just as good or better, I think next week I’ll buy two more. They work!).
Compacting is natural. Unless roots are exposed by the settling, I add nothing. Will be most interested to read what others advise.
Oh, I do add epson salt when transplanting (along with fertilizer and worm castings). Last Spring, for the first time in years, almost all varieties of my first tomatoes were stricken with blossom end rot. Some really experienced people say there is nothing to be done about BER. After adding Epsom Salt to the mix, didn’t have a problem with the Fall tomatoes. Ask me later how my maters did this Spring.
Really excited about my daughter’s-in-law raised garden. I think I’m more excited than she, and she is really excited. Maybe we’ll do pictures!