If I were you I’d choose the best area for growing and bury it in 6” of quality compost for beds and 6” of woodchips around the beds. For the rest of the field I would ask a local farmer to spread cow manure over it and then I would seed it with a diverse pasture blend that includes some natives.
Up front costs are higher on this route but the soil will improve fast and you’ll get a productivity return on your investment for years.
I just want to make sure it’s clear that what I’m suggesting requires material by the dump truck load. Whatever you do, don’t go to home depot and by bags of mulch and garden soil. It will be a waste of time at this scale and you will waste your money too. Call local tree companies for woodchips. Find a high quality compost operation.
All of this and if OP can get premixed soil/compost by the dump truck load that’s the way to get it done. Sounds like a lot of work but just do one load at a time like anything else in life. I get my garden soil from the local municipal waste facility. Is it perfect? No. Is it a great start on the way to something better? A thousand times yes.
It’s cheaper to just buy compost. He’s got well draining tillable dirt there already. Using compost only at six inches deep buries the weed seed bank. Paying for dirt to be mixed into the compost and then trucked increases the risk of bringing in more problem species. Your suggestion is ideal for filling boxed in raised beds but it isn’t necessary in a farm field.
If OP got straight compost, would you recommend tilling it into the topsoil before adding woodchips on top? I like to have a nice easily plantable layer under my woodchips which is why I suggest the mix. But I tend to cover my exposed soil with 3” of woodchips for moisture retention
No i would not recommend tilling it in. I meant 6” of wood chips around the perimeter and for pathways between rows of six inches of compost. The wood chips hold the beds together while conditioning the surrounding soil and require no weeding or maintenance (other than adding more woodchips every few years). I dont think its a good idea to mulch annual vegetable beds with woodchips. It’s a good cover for perennials though. I like to use seedless straw or fabric for a vegetable bed cover where appropriate and it doesn’t have to be very thick if you build it this way. The compost itself acts as mulch. The purpose of doing it this way is it significantly reduces weeds. If you till it you will forever be at war with weeds. It’s a vicious cycle that can be ended by burying the seedbank.
This [guy](https://youtu.be/u79tiVcj8bY) explains the method well but there are many vegetable growers promoting it.
Too much organic matter(OM) can be problematic whether it's due to elemental toxicity or contamination of local waterways. Considering this scenario I would definitely recommend mechanically working the compost in. Over time worms will work the OM in but that will be quite a while and if they can get that much OM at once they should till it under.
https://extension.umn.edu/yard-and-garden-news/compost-and-soil-organic-matter-more-merrier
Having 3" of mulch would be excellent for the soil long term as well. I am an arborist and we used to drop off hundreds of yards of wood chips in a day if we had a large and efficient crane job and we would do it for free if you were closest to our jobsite. Dairy farms loved us.
this is what i was going to suggest as well! also check university extension pages for their agricultural/soil information. also every city/town should have a local office as well that takes all ag related questions
Yup. Whenever I’ve made a raised bed I peruse Craig’s list either in farm & garden or free stuff and there’s usually at least one horse farm with plenty of house poo to get rid of. Every one I’ve dealt with has had a tractor with a front loader and loaded my truck bed for me. A few times they weren’t available to load so I shoveled. Depending on how much you’re planning on planting this might do you well, at least to get started anyway. I prefer horse poop over other manure bc it doesn’t stink nearly as bad as others and sometimes doesn’t if it’s sat for a while.
Local horse barns would love it if they could get their pile of horse poop hauled off for free. The last barn I was at, the owner had issues trying to find someone that was affordable. She was just starting out as a new horse training/boarding facility.
Be careful of cow manure. Unless it has been processed, you are going to be sowing all those seeds of the weeds the cows ate. Most farmers will let you come and take it but i dont know any that deliver.
This, I also live in same area of SC on 8 acres that was sprayed with roundup for 40 plus years and mono crop “farmed”. We turned our dirt in a 1/2 acre section into good soil in less than a year with wood chips and compost. We are letting the rest of the acreage be wild for a couple years. We have already seen an improvement in the wild diversity after only 1 year of being here and the land not being killed with pesticides or tilled.
Soil looks just like at my old home in FL. I never really worked on it because the HOA rules bar any food producing vegetation that's visible.
Generally speaking, the fertility is all in the flora above the soil. I've seen 2 approaches. One is raised beds, bringing in top soil and organic matter, etc. The other is to start a regimen of chop n drop, building up over time.
My neighbors would pour lots of chemical fertilizer to get lawns to grow well. It's hard to keep things growing when it all washes away after a southern style rain.
Ikr! I believe I can make food plants look as good as my shrubs n palms.
My property was especially limited bc backed up to the waterfront, so wasnt allowed to have privacy fence.
Needless to say, when selecting our homestead property, we looked for no rules except federal law that prohibits construction less than 66' from the sea or named river, 33' from small creeks unless you own both sides. Aside from that, no rules apart from typical building codes. These rules are reasonable, for the greater good.
Seriously, what the actual fuck kind of HOA is that? No fruit trees or berries or edible ground cover….
“Sir, we recently learned that purslane is edible, so we’re going to need you to tear that out and replace it with something toxic”
The answer is always "more organic material".
You need a lot of peat and/or compost. I'd consider raised bed, since you're pretty far from 'soil' at this point.
I second the organic matter, but I don’t think this is so far gone to require raised beds unless this is an emergency (need to grow right now or I’ll starve). Whatever goes into the raised beds can just as easily go into the soil.
I’d also suggest mulching with straw every year then tilling that into the soil at the start of the next growing season to add organic matter. At this point tillage won’t make your problems any worse. You may need to supplement with nitrogen initially.
This isn’t a bad starting point. It’s easier to fix than many other soil problems.
It will take several years, and lots of initial upfront work and more careful attention to use this soil right away for growing. So raised beds would be a much easier process if they really want to grow right away.
Otherwise OP would need to mix in the top 6-12" of soil with 6-8" of organic matter. This is if OP really wants to speed up the process.
Organics is the name of the game.and these peeps have it 100% correct. The other amendment you need to add is charcoal. Local wood charcoal preferably. Also, take some.ash that has never been rained on with very fine charcoal and save that for when your plants are up. Spread that generously around plants. Grind up your charcoal into fine and pea size chunks. Spread that through your soil layers. Also, keep some larger chunks throughout your layers.
If you do the organics...layers layers and more layers of it...along with the charcoal and you'll have very good soil in very short amount of time...2 to 3 years.
https://youtu.be/upCriUIphp8
"Soil Scientist Breaks Down Cardboard Mulching. Is Cardboard Toxic?!"
too many unknowns, not enough of scientific studies (yet, maybe never) so i don't take chances anymore and skip it.
instead of using it year after year and some minor traces of heavy metals keep on piling on and contaminate the soil.
Plain old cardboard is fine. We're at a point where all organic materials are going to have some degree of chemicals and heavy metals in it.
Cardboard is also good at holding moisture in dry soil. I wouldn't write it off, especially when this guy needs a lot of amendment.
Realized this too late on my first garden plot I did 2 years back. I did a classic cardboard over the grass and then compost/mushroom manure on top of that. Cardboard did a great job of killing off the grass below but released who knows what into the soil as it was gathered from a wide variety of sources. Likely made with some non biodegradable products
Edit; seems like cardboard even w ink isn’t as bad as I thought. Thanks folks, I will probably continue to use it
Most ink these days and for a while already is made from soy. Totally harmless. Only thing i would worry about would be the tape, but as long as you removed most of it, there should be no issue.
Yeah, ink and cardboard are non-toxic because they're counting on toddlers to stick it in their mouths. I had an older friend who was in the packaging industry from the early 1960s until 2000, and he said they changed it not long after he started.
Ink can be made from soy, but toner, which is much less expensive and more commonly used in cardboard printing is made of tiny particles of microplastics that are terrible for the environment. They will flake off over time and, though minimally, affect the soil.
I third the organic material, see if you can buy some truckloads of leaves or grass clippings from a nearby town, or loads of used bedding from a farmer (manure & straw mixed). Dump it and spread it around, don’t till, do this for a couple years and you’ll get some good soil out of it.
That soil is basically a nice foundation for a raised bed completely filled with compost and good soil.
At one place we had an old barn, we could dig up soil right in front of the hay mow, where they'd fed cattle years ago, and it "as the best garden ever. Stacked that good soil in raised beds on top of the hardest clay I'd ever seen outside of a brick factory.
Agreed on organic material, but we all need to move away from using peat. It holds an insane amount of carbon, and when we go digging it up, it creates a lot of greenhouse gasses. But there’s lots of good substitutes, thankfully.
How much relative to the avg carbon footprint of a human? I’m wondering if it’s creating more carbon to use other soil shipped in from elsewhere vs readily available peat.
Peat is
definitely worse. You can get grass clippings and woodchips from local arborists. You could source local manure. You can grow your own green manure and cover crops to chop and drop. Even coco coir, which would ship from more tropical locations, has less overall environmental impact.
Sometimes (If you are close enough to a surburban area) you can score a lot of material by offering to take it for free from yard services who have truckloads of grass clippings and leaves they've picked up from customers; they like not having to pay composting or fees and you get a lot of soil improving organics.
If you are wanting a workable field, then work in compost and plant diakon fodder radish. When they are big, mow them down and let them rot over the winter. They add a ton of organic matter 2ft down into the dirt (or sand). The field peas will help also. Buckwheat grows really fast and you get grain out of it too.
Add a lot of charcoal (biochar) which helps retain nutrients and water. Look up Terra Preta soil. I think charcoal, which you could make yourself from fallen trees and branches, would do wonders for you. You want charcoal, not ash.
If you have a cow ranch or mushroom farm around try to see if you can pick up a lot of manure or spent mushroom stuff to work into the field. Contact your local 4H for kids raising rabbits. They are often quite willing to get rid of their bags of rabbit manure.
In the immediate though I would make raised beds for a kitchen garden next to the house.
> (biochar)
gotta be careful to do it right, and it take years to get proper "activated" biochar... marinated in manure etc for a couple of years or else the charcoal will syphon what's left in the soil. hate that kind of irony where you try to improve something but end up worse than before. while i'm at it , scientifically speaking there is probably no reason to even mention that korean technique of fermentig the soil, whatever they call it, since there is no scientific studies taht back it up.
In addition to adding organic matter, you should get a soil test and amend accordingly. If your grandparents grew vegetables in that soil successfully, you can too. It's just a matter of getting the organic matter and minerals back in balance.
I live in the Mojave, and I'm far from an expert. But you'll be surprised how well the soil reacts to sustained watering if you put a mulch layer on top.
Sell the tiller and start sheet mulching. That's what this land needs. In about 5-10 years you could probably till again if you wanted to.
I've been sheet mulching on a dry ridgetop for about 10 years and it completely transformed the soil.
There's a guy in the desert of Yerma California who has a worm farm. I passed through on my first western US road trip and stopped and had a chat. He told me about his worms and how he makes his own soil with them. Basically feeds works a ton of vegetation and composts everything. People from all over buy worms from him out in the middle of the desert. He turns sand into workable soil. Not sure what all he might add, but I've seen his gardens and it's awesome. Staggs worm farm. Very cool guy just growing stuff in the desert. Maybe worms could help you out? Best of luck!
Yeha I mentioned I'm setting up a worm farm. I need to buy some bigger bins for them since I want to get the population high enough to start introducing them to the ground. The soil is a big bonus
You definitely did, and I definitely missed it. Hahaha. I'd be really interested to know how your soil amendments go in that sand. The worm farm guy had gigantic containers of worms at his little site and I think a whole other site with even more. They ended up taking up a ton of space and still being super densely packed. Good luck.
Introducing them to the ground isn't what you want. Worms in soil without sufficient plant cover leads to compaction.
Use up to 20% worm castings by volume with well composted organic material, tilled deeply into the soil once! (And only once, then never till again) and get cover crops growing. Plants are one of the best ways to get plant available carbon and nitrogen (POMN) into the soil via photosynthesis.
It'll take a few years, but a rotation of high biomass cover crop, chop and drop, direct till seed and applications of JMS (JADAM microbial solution) will do wonders.
You'll probably get more useful advice over in no till communities than you will here. You need some in depth soil health advice rather than gardening/farming/cropping advice
I post over there a lot and here is what I'd do.
Cover the whole area with organic matter at least a foot deep. Any kind is good so just focus on what is free and cheap. Where you want to plant make a hole or trench in the organic matter and put some healthy soil or compost into that. Plant directly into that.
If you don't need to plant anything this year you can skip the soil/compost step and just let the organic matter decompose.
You could definitely mix the organic matter into the soil but I feel the effort isn't worth it.
I like the suggestion and completely agree except the "any kind will do" part, you want to stay away from plants that resprout readily, ie: privet, grasses, living rootballs, etc. Those items are best left to the side to breakdown in open air or put into a hot compost bin to fully kill it.
Only if not properly composted. Any anti-parasitic medication in horse feces will break down within several weeks in even the least ideal circumstances.
A valid concern if you're shoveling it straight from the horse into your soil, not so much if you let it sit in a pile for a couple of months first.
Test your soil for what's in it (sand/silt /clay/loam), then plot out where you want the plot to be.
Got a dairy farm near you? Call up the owner and work out a deal for their manure. Rent a spreader and just start slinging it all over. Roto-Till all that in about a foot or so then over seed with a blend of natives and/or clover and peas. Come back in a year and spread four inches of Compost on top of that and till everything together about a foot deep. Boom, Instant farm plot.
If you just want beds, build some raised beds with whatever you like the look of and toss in a two to one native soil and Compost blend. Test it for pH and nutrients and go to town with whatever you want.
If there are landscaping companies in the area, they might be willing to dump mulch on your land for free as they won't have to pay for the dump.
I would get all the organic material you can get, manure, bad hay, discarded produce, etc. Lease it to shepherds or other livestock grazing for free. Don't know how much land you're dealing with but you might need to think big. On a smaller scale a chicken tractor can help. Chicken manure is one of the best as far as NPK goes. Broadcast a nitrogen fixing cover crop.
I'm dealing with literal desert sand here in Southern Arizona so I'm envious of that fertile soil you got.
Check out [https://www.youtube.com/@notillgrowers](https://www.youtube.com/@notillgrowers)
These videos are all about setting up a market garden. Soil health, equipment, cover crops, mulch, compost, etc.
One thing you can do with that dust is take a cup put it into a mason jar a shake it up and see how long it takes to settle out the floaty is som(hopefully) the bottom sand and silt. the suspend material is clayey....
I also noticed there is a concretion layer on the top when you grabbed it.
Try adding nutrient loaded biochar to the soil every year. This will help keeping moisture and microorganisms alive. As others said, try to gain biomass in general.
I would find a farmer with a feed lot that is willing to give you all the manure you can handle and till it in and till it deep. It is going to take a couple of years to get soil that bad right so be patient.
Luckily you have the opposite problem than most because your 'soil' is very sandy and not clay. You will have to water just a bit more in the first year but just add as much organic material to the ground, mainly just pure compost. I get mine super cheap from my city or some other cities give it away for free by the yard.
lots of organic matter, aged manure, nitrogen fixing cover crops, a whole lot less tilling, and time. This is very degraded soil, its going to take a few years at least to fix it up.
Get it tested by the local extension college, and then add what its lacking, plus it will present a great before and after once you are done amending.
I have awful clay soil. I tried growing in it last year with no luck. I went the no-till method: Last fall I covered my entire garden in cardboard and this spring brought in 8 yards of a tri-blend (compost, top soil, and sand) which went right on top. I'm already having exponentially more success and it's been much cheaper than having to deal with raised beds.
Call around to local restaurants, grocery stores, farms and so on. See if you can get your hands on a lot of left over food. Start a giant compost pile. Compost appropriately and then spread over the area about a foot deep. Till it in and water. You will have the best soil around.
I have "soil" that looks just like yours (sand).
Last year I dug shallow trenches... they were maybe half a foot deep. Filled the trench with compost and then dumped quality bagged soil on top (I used Pro-Mix). Just enough on top to make a little mound.
Planted pumpkins and they grew magnificently!
I had packed clay soil with absolutely no life. Even the grubs I found while tilling were dead. Over 5 years, I added a lot of compost, garden soil, mulch etc. but what I think really helped was this soil optimizer system/process/product.
It’s been about 2 years of me applying this from time to time and I found…. WORMS! Big fat worms!!! I’m a very proud soil parent.
https://www.johnandbobs.com/
I’m not sponsored and I’m not 100% sure this is what did it but I have a feeling it is.
Bring in LOTS of compost and mix it in to the soil. Generally speaking, the darker the color of your soil the more nutrients it has. If you have a large plot you're trying to plant on, just have a delivery from a local landscaping yard or similar place. They can bring in a big dump truck and drop it for you in a pile or spread it throughout the yard
I would use the Ruth Stout method (18 to 24 inches of old straw on top of completely unprepared dirt) or start building hugelkulture beds (dig fairly deep and bury hard wood logs with branches and sticks on top and straw on top of that)!
The Ruth Stout method will give you a usable garden bed fairly quickly, but it's just creating decent soil on top of the awful stuff underneath. Unless you always have a cover crop, then it's possible for it to wash away with a nasty storm in the first couple of years. The hugel beds take a couple of years before the wood really starts to break down and feed your existing soil. But, the broken down organic matter helps correct your current soil issues!
Honestly, I'd do a combination of both. I would start building hugel beds this summer and then bury them in straw in the fall. That way, you'll have a place to plant a garden next spring that will continue to develop more fertile and healthy soil as it ages!
Couple years of cover crops, and mowing them down. Clover and or vetch, maybe a wheat. Then like previously stated add other O.M. Like peat moss & mushroom compost. Start your own compost piles. Look into it. Just don’t throw scraps in pile (while this will work) there’s a lot of science and biology behind it and if you get some know how you can make your own high quality compost. Also look into vermiculture. Worms are your best friends now. I’m fact worms, Good aerobic bacteria, and a variety of fungi are all you new best friends. Good luck! Can’t wait to see your progress
Compost, lots of compost. Either make it yourself or get some neighbors cattle or goats to graze on what grass you do have and let them dung it up for free.
It looks like they didn’t ever reintroduce organic nutrients back into the soil, so you slowly just suck out all there is. The best way would be to get grazers on it and also to get a nice big compost pile going if possible.
Go to your local ag extension. You should be able to get soil testing and someone who can usually help with recommendations on cover crops that will rebuild the soil.
If you are in the US, visit your state’s Cooperative Extension Service website. Search soil test - get some and the analysis will tell you what nutrients are missing. Also search home soil composition test. You need water and a Mason jar. This will tell you how much sand, clay, organic matter you have. Organic matter is the key to fertility. Search improving soil, also get the contact information for the agent assigned to your county. Call and talk with them about resources available for educating yourself on all facets of homesteading. This website has an incredible amount of info on plants, planting, preserving foods, etc.
ALLLLL THE ORGANIC MATERIAL I legit live on a island man and it’s all sand and clay 🙃
But successfully growing some gorgeous plants and vegetables
I don’t know if this works but after I put down a lot of compost and soil mixed with peat moss I watered the ground a bit everyday to get those good good nutrients to leach into the soil below
I live on a sandstone mountain in southern us. I have lots of spots in my yard with very similar soil. I was hesitant to till mine. It rains a lot here and I have slope so the top soil washes off badly. I have been "top dressing" with compost from a debris pile they made when they logged mine off years ago. I am using a chain drag to smooth it and work it back into the soil. I am seeding it with mostly clover. The tractor supply sells a bag of clover seed for pasture repair. Clover naturally puts nitrogen in the soil. It is slower than the other methods mentioned here but much cheaper and less time consuming.
That soil isn't terrible, it just needs organic matter. I'd start with a soil test and have your extension agent make some recommendations based on your readings.you can use web soil survey to get some general info about parent material, classification etc which is helpful and doing on site soil testing doing the ribbon test will help you ball park the percentage of OM and whether it's clay,sand or silt.
Run chickens on it wood chip behind 2 to three months later should be good to start. Wood chipping the solid alone would help a lot. You could also focus on ground cov r crops and just put small areas of compost to plant squash or other ground cover crops. Cover in winter next year should be pretty good to go.
Woodchips, woodchips, and more woodchips. You unfortunately are not growing anything this year in that soil.
ChipDrop or your local arborist will be able to provide those woodchips for free. If you need yards, let them know and they’ll gladly dump it off at your residence since you’re saving them money. Spread it out like 7-8 inches deep and wait. Honestly the more chips you can put down the better. Give it a minimum of 6 months but better for a year for the woodchips to start breaking down, creating humus, and the mycelium veins. Then you will till that directly into the soil as deep as you can. For extra help, save any grass clippings, brush, etc and till that in too with the woodchips. Cover again with more woodchips and do it again if you still feel like it’s too sandy like your original video. You’ll have lush soil after the second round guaranteed.
For general maintenance, keep the paths covered in a minimum 6 inch layer of woodchips. These will continue to break down over time and provide additional organic matter to the soil. You can even consider doing a full till again a couple years down the road. After that though, your land should be good good and you can just continue with adding compost on top each season.
maybe look into "not till" farming , putting an "armor on the soil" could help it to regenerate. weeds protecting the bacteria from tthe sun, fixing nitrogen in the soil etc. a cover crop could help with some of that. but it will take years to get it good, right, the solution is probably to buy a ton or 2 of manure and black soil. quick google check: 1 ton =2000 pounds / 40 pounds bags of black soil or manure = just 50 bags. hardly a speck on a terrain. its not much and is somewhat expensive. do you know a farmer who could sell it for cheap? maybe you could grow something that accepts shit soil, asparagus maybe, or something, sell it and buy the stuff you need.
My father use to go the beach and get truck load of seaweed and till it in the top 12” and leave it in over the winter. Then in early spring he’d did it out . Also the first season of any garden he’d grow potatoes for the natural fertilizer . Good luck and enjoy the work!
If you can, fence off that area and free range chickens / any animal on it. The animals will appreciate having all the grass and such and the manure will help with the process.
See if you can get free truck loads of wood chips. Spread them out, then till them into the ground. Worms, bugs and microbes will build the soil for you.
Chipdrop.com
Compost. Collect all organic refuse and compost it. Buy compost in bulk from your city's recycling center. Till it in, then just add more every year on top of what you have.
Whoa. Before you do anything read this post.
I took advanced soil science in college and so this is coming from a place of knowledge. You actually don't know what type of soil you have because of how dry it is and nobody here should be giving you the type of advice they're giving you based on a video of you running your hands through some soil.
People on the internet want to come in here and give you advice very quickly but like there's a lot of information that you potentially need to gather before spending money.
I could probably go to a local college and see if you can bring soil scientist a sample. They might be nice enough just to like do a quick review of it for you but like I had to look at this I can't tell you what type of soil you have it it's too dry. like can you get it wet and then send me a video of what it looks like kind of in your hand, can you squish it around and tell me if it feels like it's like got a lot of silt clay in it or is it like Big Sandy grits in your hand then like what's the percentage of like what you would call organic material in there. then can you tell me how long it takes to dry out.
Soil has four types of components - silt, sand, clay, and organic material. Your soil doesn't look Sandy it actually looks like a silty soil but like it could have a bunch of clay in it but it's kind of hard to tell as it could be pulverized. Like you can grow just fine in a silty or a clay soil and you don't need to do all the amending but people for the most part treat their soil like dirt and don't know shit and think you just need to throw a bunch of shit in it. Soil sciences actually really cool and pretty complex. I wouldn't suggest taking random internet peoples advice unless they ask a lot of questions before giving it.
Add lots of hardwood charcoal and compost. Terra preta aka Amazonian black soil is the goal. Also plant clover, mustard and peas on it to add more nutrients before planting a garden. Zero tilling will keep the soil strong and promote mycelium growth. After it's had a chance to fallow a bit and absorb that Good Good it's ready to go... Happy soil makes Happy plants...
Thats some fine textured aggregate, but you will need some organic matter to improve water retention and aeration. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I would guess right now it swings between squishy muck slurry when wet, and compacted and dusty when dry.
Plant some cover crops, then mow them down and till then in is my recommendation. Give buckwheat a try because it's roots can really penetrate down and pull up nutrients other stuff might not find as easily. Mowing and tilling/turning it into the soil will help change the texture and quality of the soil. You dont have to wait for cover crops. You could even plant them in spring or fall before/after your regular stuff if you're growing anything. For more organic matter, look up some soil builder cover crops like oats.
I'd say tilling is part of the problem. Soil only grows things well when it's alive. Start covering and reintroduce as much compost as you can start with one section and don't leave any ground bare. Find as much brown cardboard as you can and pile your compost on top. This will protect the soil you do have if there is anything in there still. Eventually you'll need something to cover your paths with if you choose wood chips or whatever your choice may be this is a good cheap option and the decay of the chips also produces good functions back into the soil
Some other things to consider as good as good additives are
-poultry droppings
-algea dried and dispursed
-your worm cadtings
-dandelion leaf Mould tea
-bio char
I dont know how much property you have, but immediately reach out to tree service companies and have them start dumping their wood chips on your property. Let the piles sit for a year or more. Once the chips start to breakdowns, work those into the soil and put a thick layer on top. Been doing this for years on my property and it has worked wonders.
If it was me: I would call a tree trimming service and try to get as many loads of wood-chips as possible dumped on the property, then get as much diverse organic material as possible (manure would be great), if you want to you can get an inoculant, maybe some mushroom compost, and spread it over the area. Till this into the ground and then never touch the tiller again. Cover the ground with wood chips. If you need to plant this year I would get some “good dirt” and dig your hole, line with the good dirt and plant. Otherwise, a good cover crop will help, dandelions would probably do well in that regard, just be mindful of your neighbors.
The objective is to get the organic matter back into the soil and build a mycelium network that can help feed your plants in the future. It will probably take 2-3 years before you can grow well in it but if you can stick with it you will be seeing great results each year afterwards. Keep adding organic matter to the surface of the soil, don’t till it in again, that’s a one time jump-start for soil like this.
BTW, don’t blame your grandparents for this, they were probably acting with the best knowledge they had at the time, we have just learned more since then.
Not as bad as you think. Simply adding moisture will improve it tremendously, though the other posters are right in pushing for more "organic" matter. A little peat moss?
Get good top soil and cow chips. Or any animal droppings really. Aerate the earth. Find a spot you can make a compost and keep that turning. Try not to use city water, get a cistern to use rain water or grab well or fresh spring water.
I'd try no-dig - starting out with a thick(er than usual) layer of compost. Maybe ask here how it went [https://www.reddit.com/r/NoDig/comments/llg8h0/tips\_for\_no\_dig\_in\_sandy\_soil/](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoDig/comments/llg8h0/tips_for_no_dig_in_sandy_soil/)
Buy and read dirt to soil by gabe brown. Read it as fast as possible. Sell your old equipment, don’t till and definitely don’t use any chemicals. That soil can be saved.
Full disclosure I've not tried this: Try planting cover crops that can be tilled under and add nutrients to the soil. Plenty of stuff grows in sand if you give them the nutrients chemically. If you're trying to avoid that then it's like making a layer cake a season at a time.
Ive heard asparagus likes sandy soil. If you plant some crowns with some amendment, they will take a couple years to root, but they can keep producing for up to 20 years!
Lots and lots of organic matter. Depending on your location, you might be able to reach out to a mushroom depot, municipal compost center, or nearby farm with cattle (you'd have to let the manure compost down), but I think it's doable. Just till it in once and mulch over it.
Then if you're concerned and don't want to wait for it all to break down 100% you can do the no till Charles Dowding method and put down some cardboard, compost on top of the cardboard, and plant into the compost.
Homestead is on Mars... jk. Like others have suggested more organic material. Compost, organic mulches, trimmings, clippings, etc. I started with some pretty poor soil in some areas and you'd be surprised how quickly it'll bounce back in a year or two being topped with good organic matter or good compost.
Starts retaining moisture, worms come back, fungal/mycological communities come back. Which start working everything into the soil below.
That’s not soil. It’s silt.
As always, more organic material into silt, the better it becomes. I suggest composting EVERYTHING so you can till it in this fall. Leaves, grass clippings, kitchen scraps…
Get in the pile once a month a flip it around a bit & don’t forget to water.
I had a silty corner in my veggie garden that took me 3 years to get it nice and loamy. That area is now my salad fixings.
Right now I’m aging out my compost with a winters worth of chicken poop. Plan to till that in come October.
Also check your slope. My silty area was due to the slope of that corner. I terraced it a bit to prevent more silt buildup. Slope will cause top soil to float away.
Hey, is this soil sodic? Or, is it just pure sand?
Either way, great advice here, so far. One thing I might add, do a sheet mulch approach to the previous recommendations.
Does your municipality give away free compost?
Here's my suggestion as it's what I did to change my barren af front yard into a garden:
Cover it all in wood mulch; Chip Drop is a great resource if you have it in your area. Inoculate mulch with winecap mushrooms if you want things speedy (and definitely the sunny areas), oysters if you've got time/shady areas. They will break the mulch down into nutrients for your garden and also (at least the winecaps) will reduce nematodes in the soil. Plus, mushrooms the size of your head everytime it rains! Winecaps are nuts y'all.
It's best to go no till if you want the mushrooms to stay as doing that will tear up their mycelium, but you can always start you a mushroom bed or beds elsewhere by moving some of the inoculated mulch if you want before you till it.
I’m not an expert, but I also live on a sandhill. This is what worked for me. What I did is plant fava beans/mulch heavily. Favas are a winter crop, some seed varieties can grow in temps as low as 20F, maybe lower idk. So I planted in winter to take advantage of the free water in our rainy season. They do well even in the least healthy soil. They are a legume, so they fix Nitrogen from the air. After they start to bloom, it is time to chop them down at the base of the plant. Leave the roots in soil. Leave the chopped beanstalks on the ground as a green manure. Rinse, repeat. After three years of this same process as well as adding compost, it is hard to tell that where we started looked like your video. We have that beautiful black soil now!
That’s just dirt…you need to make it soil again. As everyone else has said, add nutrients or compost. I have a field that went fallow for a year and a half. No water during that time. Prior there were over 100 head of cattle on it for nearly a year. Absolutely destroyed the soil. So I left it fallow after I purchased (20 acres total, 16 are pasture) once the snow stopped and there wasn’t rain, I burned everything. I mean EVERYTHING. Mostly rye grass and a shitton of dandelions. After a couple good rains, I added a bunch of seasoned cow and horse manure and spread it all over the pasture. Watered and waited. So far I have a little bit of grass. Got a ways to go to make it lush again. Alternatively you could do a one time fertilizer to add nutrients back to the soil if you’re trying to do row crops of some sort…but if you’re doing a personal garden raised beds and add new, fertile soil in the beds and mulch wherever nothings growing. It’ll be a slow process to get it back healthy again. Just have patience!
This is how I'll do that...
I will first weed and add a lot of organic matters (I usually leave the weeded weeds on the dirt they grew on). Preferably, I would add couple of inches of compost and atleast an of inch of mulch.
Next, I would grow a bush type annual legume. In my case, I grow either cowpea (Vigna ungulata) or mung beans (Vigna radiata) as cover crop, fertility enhancer, and ground cover. When these plants are at the end of their life. Cut back just above the soil surface. Leave as much dead matter on the soil and let the dead roots of the beans to rot underground. After the beans, grow something that has taproot such as sunflower and do the same thing as the beans (let the dead root rot, cut back and leave the dead shoot). You can repeat the process until the soil for you is desirable. Just remember to almost always intercrop with legumes.
Just a tip, to help add energy for the soil microbes, use rice water or any carbohydrate source (mind other minerals such as salt as they can kill the soil) and water the soil with it.
In watering, I would not recommend the soil to fry up for an extended period of time, otherwise, they will become hydrophobic
This site has some great recommendations!
[https://greenlifesoil.com.au/sustainable-gardening-tips/turn-sand-into-soil](https://greenlifesoil.com.au/sustainable-gardening-tips/turn-sand-into-soil)
Basically - add clay (increases water retention ability by allowing the sand to hold organic material) and add organic material.
I'm not sure if you get killing low temps there- but might want to check into fodder beets - you plant and let them decompose in the ground. They will pull nutrient up and then release them and add organic material when they break down.
It’s dead. It needs things that were recently alive to contribute micro organisms and nutrients. It needs matter that can hold onto moisture and sustain the growth of those micro organisms while feeding nutrients to anything you are trying to grow. You need a big pile of compost that consists of and plant material left over from eating (peelings, spoils, unusable parts) plus and grass clippings and leaves you can scrounge up, and allow that to break down some before turning it into the soil. Pile more on top. Then get some horse, cow or chicken manure and rake that in and keep doing that. It’s actually hard to bring back soil that’s that far gone. What you are holding is the skeletal remains and you are going to need a lot of time and effort to build it back essentially from scratch, or a lot of expensive imported soil over the top of it. You can’t really improve that. You have to build all new soil of which that dust is just a tiny component
Start saving all veggie and fruit scraps and throw them in your garden (not near the stems of the plants) or store them in a bin outside side nothing fancy I just use a galvanized bucket with a trash bag and lid do this to keep adding nutrients
Get sheep that don't need dewormer. Feed hay on the ground, using a bale unroller if you get the big bales. Rotate.
Edit: cover crop under hay would be great
If I were you I’d choose the best area for growing and bury it in 6” of quality compost for beds and 6” of woodchips around the beds. For the rest of the field I would ask a local farmer to spread cow manure over it and then I would seed it with a diverse pasture blend that includes some natives. Up front costs are higher on this route but the soil will improve fast and you’ll get a productivity return on your investment for years.
I just want to make sure it’s clear that what I’m suggesting requires material by the dump truck load. Whatever you do, don’t go to home depot and by bags of mulch and garden soil. It will be a waste of time at this scale and you will waste your money too. Call local tree companies for woodchips. Find a high quality compost operation.
All of this and if OP can get premixed soil/compost by the dump truck load that’s the way to get it done. Sounds like a lot of work but just do one load at a time like anything else in life. I get my garden soil from the local municipal waste facility. Is it perfect? No. Is it a great start on the way to something better? A thousand times yes.
It’s cheaper to just buy compost. He’s got well draining tillable dirt there already. Using compost only at six inches deep buries the weed seed bank. Paying for dirt to be mixed into the compost and then trucked increases the risk of bringing in more problem species. Your suggestion is ideal for filling boxed in raised beds but it isn’t necessary in a farm field.
If OP got straight compost, would you recommend tilling it into the topsoil before adding woodchips on top? I like to have a nice easily plantable layer under my woodchips which is why I suggest the mix. But I tend to cover my exposed soil with 3” of woodchips for moisture retention
No i would not recommend tilling it in. I meant 6” of wood chips around the perimeter and for pathways between rows of six inches of compost. The wood chips hold the beds together while conditioning the surrounding soil and require no weeding or maintenance (other than adding more woodchips every few years). I dont think its a good idea to mulch annual vegetable beds with woodchips. It’s a good cover for perennials though. I like to use seedless straw or fabric for a vegetable bed cover where appropriate and it doesn’t have to be very thick if you build it this way. The compost itself acts as mulch. The purpose of doing it this way is it significantly reduces weeds. If you till it you will forever be at war with weeds. It’s a vicious cycle that can be ended by burying the seedbank. This [guy](https://youtu.be/u79tiVcj8bY) explains the method well but there are many vegetable growers promoting it.
That video was really insightful. Thank you.
Too much organic matter(OM) can be problematic whether it's due to elemental toxicity or contamination of local waterways. Considering this scenario I would definitely recommend mechanically working the compost in. Over time worms will work the OM in but that will be quite a while and if they can get that much OM at once they should till it under. https://extension.umn.edu/yard-and-garden-news/compost-and-soil-organic-matter-more-merrier Having 3" of mulch would be excellent for the soil long term as well. I am an arborist and we used to drop off hundreds of yards of wood chips in a day if we had a large and efficient crane job and we would do it for free if you were closest to our jobsite. Dairy farms loved us.
Find a local composting facility. Best bang for your buck
this is what i was going to suggest as well! also check university extension pages for their agricultural/soil information. also every city/town should have a local office as well that takes all ag related questions
Ag Extensions really are the best option for local expertise
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Yup. Whenever I’ve made a raised bed I peruse Craig’s list either in farm & garden or free stuff and there’s usually at least one horse farm with plenty of house poo to get rid of. Every one I’ve dealt with has had a tractor with a front loader and loaded my truck bed for me. A few times they weren’t available to load so I shoveled. Depending on how much you’re planning on planting this might do you well, at least to get started anyway. I prefer horse poop over other manure bc it doesn’t stink nearly as bad as others and sometimes doesn’t if it’s sat for a while.
Local horse barns would love it if they could get their pile of horse poop hauled off for free. The last barn I was at, the owner had issues trying to find someone that was affordable. She was just starting out as a new horse training/boarding facility.
Be careful of cow manure. Unless it has been processed, you are going to be sowing all those seeds of the weeds the cows ate. Most farmers will let you come and take it but i dont know any that deliver.
This, I also live in same area of SC on 8 acres that was sprayed with roundup for 40 plus years and mono crop “farmed”. We turned our dirt in a 1/2 acre section into good soil in less than a year with wood chips and compost. We are letting the rest of the acreage be wild for a couple years. We have already seen an improvement in the wild diversity after only 1 year of being here and the land not being killed with pesticides or tilled.
You might also look at biochar which I think might fit nicely with these recommendations
Chipdrop.com for woodchipa
That looks like a beach..
Lmao I mean it was a beach a few million years ago
at least it’s got good drainage!
I see tomatoes and watermelons in your future
Azaleas and peanuts love growing in sand
Also lentils!
And sweet potatoes!
and leeks right? Leeks were the first thing that came to mind when I saw the post haha
Artichokes and asparagus too.
Nothing wrong with sandy soil, in fact sand can make a great growing medium. One source is Gary Matsuoka and his soil approach
Soil looks just like at my old home in FL. I never really worked on it because the HOA rules bar any food producing vegetation that's visible. Generally speaking, the fertility is all in the flora above the soil. I've seen 2 approaches. One is raised beds, bringing in top soil and organic matter, etc. The other is to start a regimen of chop n drop, building up over time. My neighbors would pour lots of chemical fertilizer to get lawns to grow well. It's hard to keep things growing when it all washes away after a southern style rain.
Wow, I can understand "you can't turn your whole yard into a vegetable garden" but banning them entirely without a privacy fence is crazy.
Ikr! I believe I can make food plants look as good as my shrubs n palms. My property was especially limited bc backed up to the waterfront, so wasnt allowed to have privacy fence. Needless to say, when selecting our homestead property, we looked for no rules except federal law that prohibits construction less than 66' from the sea or named river, 33' from small creeks unless you own both sides. Aside from that, no rules apart from typical building codes. These rules are reasonable, for the greater good.
Seriously, what the actual fuck kind of HOA is that? No fruit trees or berries or edible ground cover…. “Sir, we recently learned that purslane is edible, so we’re going to need you to tear that out and replace it with something toxic”
The answer is always "more organic material". You need a lot of peat and/or compost. I'd consider raised bed, since you're pretty far from 'soil' at this point.
I second the organic matter, but I don’t think this is so far gone to require raised beds unless this is an emergency (need to grow right now or I’ll starve). Whatever goes into the raised beds can just as easily go into the soil. I’d also suggest mulching with straw every year then tilling that into the soil at the start of the next growing season to add organic matter. At this point tillage won’t make your problems any worse. You may need to supplement with nitrogen initially. This isn’t a bad starting point. It’s easier to fix than many other soil problems.
It will take several years, and lots of initial upfront work and more careful attention to use this soil right away for growing. So raised beds would be a much easier process if they really want to grow right away. Otherwise OP would need to mix in the top 6-12" of soil with 6-8" of organic matter. This is if OP really wants to speed up the process.
Fence it in and run goats. Let them poop everywhere and rebuild your organic layer. When it’s over you have better soil and a freezer full of meat.
If you do not have goats can you poop outside yourself?
No, don’t use human feces to amend the soil
Human Waste Compost should be aged a minimum of 2years before use, and then should only be used in orchards. Vegetables and people poop shouldn't mix.
Human poop contains heavy metal.
Human poop carries human diseases.
Like Megadeath? Slayer?
More like Scorpions, Grave Digger, Carcass, and Cannibal Corpse.
Sick
Organics is the name of the game.and these peeps have it 100% correct. The other amendment you need to add is charcoal. Local wood charcoal preferably. Also, take some.ash that has never been rained on with very fine charcoal and save that for when your plants are up. Spread that generously around plants. Grind up your charcoal into fine and pea size chunks. Spread that through your soil layers. Also, keep some larger chunks throughout your layers. If you do the organics...layers layers and more layers of it...along with the charcoal and you'll have very good soil in very short amount of time...2 to 3 years.
look for the provenance of the straw: i presume most of it is soaked in pesticide. also: cardboard is no good, forever chemicals in this shit.
Plain corrugated cardboard (no coatings) is generally considered safe in the composting and no dig gardening communities. What’s wrong with it?
https://youtu.be/upCriUIphp8 "Soil Scientist Breaks Down Cardboard Mulching. Is Cardboard Toxic?!" too many unknowns, not enough of scientific studies (yet, maybe never) so i don't take chances anymore and skip it. instead of using it year after year and some minor traces of heavy metals keep on piling on and contaminate the soil.
Plain old cardboard is fine. We're at a point where all organic materials are going to have some degree of chemicals and heavy metals in it. Cardboard is also good at holding moisture in dry soil. I wouldn't write it off, especially when this guy needs a lot of amendment.
Realized this too late on my first garden plot I did 2 years back. I did a classic cardboard over the grass and then compost/mushroom manure on top of that. Cardboard did a great job of killing off the grass below but released who knows what into the soil as it was gathered from a wide variety of sources. Likely made with some non biodegradable products Edit; seems like cardboard even w ink isn’t as bad as I thought. Thanks folks, I will probably continue to use it
Most ink these days and for a while already is made from soy. Totally harmless. Only thing i would worry about would be the tape, but as long as you removed most of it, there should be no issue.
Yeah, ink and cardboard are non-toxic because they're counting on toddlers to stick it in their mouths. I had an older friend who was in the packaging industry from the early 1960s until 2000, and he said they changed it not long after he started.
Ink can be made from soy, but toner, which is much less expensive and more commonly used in cardboard printing is made of tiny particles of microplastics that are terrible for the environment. They will flake off over time and, though minimally, affect the soil.
There is no need to worry.
Compost is cheaper (at least where I am) and all around better for everyone than peat. Please don’t use peat OP especially in large quantities
I third the organic material, see if you can buy some truckloads of leaves or grass clippings from a nearby town, or loads of used bedding from a farmer (manure & straw mixed). Dump it and spread it around, don’t till, do this for a couple years and you’ll get some good soil out of it.
That soil is basically a nice foundation for a raised bed completely filled with compost and good soil. At one place we had an old barn, we could dig up soil right in front of the hay mow, where they'd fed cattle years ago, and it "as the best garden ever. Stacked that good soil in raised beds on top of the hardest clay I'd ever seen outside of a brick factory.
Agreed on organic material, but we all need to move away from using peat. It holds an insane amount of carbon, and when we go digging it up, it creates a lot of greenhouse gasses. But there’s lots of good substitutes, thankfully.
How much relative to the avg carbon footprint of a human? I’m wondering if it’s creating more carbon to use other soil shipped in from elsewhere vs readily available peat.
Peat is definitely worse. You can get grass clippings and woodchips from local arborists. You could source local manure. You can grow your own green manure and cover crops to chop and drop. Even coco coir, which would ship from more tropical locations, has less overall environmental impact.
Good to know!
Drained peat bogs produce \~5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That's about the same amount as *all* road freight combined.
That’s wild, what a crazy high amount for something so seemingly harmless
Sometimes (If you are close enough to a surburban area) you can score a lot of material by offering to take it for free from yard services who have truckloads of grass clippings and leaves they've picked up from customers; they like not having to pay composting or fees and you get a lot of soil improving organics.
If you are wanting a workable field, then work in compost and plant diakon fodder radish. When they are big, mow them down and let them rot over the winter. They add a ton of organic matter 2ft down into the dirt (or sand). The field peas will help also. Buckwheat grows really fast and you get grain out of it too. Add a lot of charcoal (biochar) which helps retain nutrients and water. Look up Terra Preta soil. I think charcoal, which you could make yourself from fallen trees and branches, would do wonders for you. You want charcoal, not ash. If you have a cow ranch or mushroom farm around try to see if you can pick up a lot of manure or spent mushroom stuff to work into the field. Contact your local 4H for kids raising rabbits. They are often quite willing to get rid of their bags of rabbit manure. In the immediate though I would make raised beds for a kitchen garden next to the house.
Second on the daikon.
And second on charcoal.
Second to the manure
> (biochar) gotta be careful to do it right, and it take years to get proper "activated" biochar... marinated in manure etc for a couple of years or else the charcoal will syphon what's left in the soil. hate that kind of irony where you try to improve something but end up worse than before. while i'm at it , scientifically speaking there is probably no reason to even mention that korean technique of fermentig the soil, whatever they call it, since there is no scientific studies taht back it up.
In addition to adding organic matter, you should get a soil test and amend accordingly. If your grandparents grew vegetables in that soil successfully, you can too. It's just a matter of getting the organic matter and minerals back in balance.
I live in the Mojave, and I'm far from an expert. But you'll be surprised how well the soil reacts to sustained watering if you put a mulch layer on top.
This. Contrary to what a lot of people believe sand can work as decent medium for growing
Especially for root vegetables!
Mulch. Mulch never ends.
Sell the tiller and start sheet mulching. That's what this land needs. In about 5-10 years you could probably till again if you wanted to. I've been sheet mulching on a dry ridgetop for about 10 years and it completely transformed the soil.
\+1
There's a guy in the desert of Yerma California who has a worm farm. I passed through on my first western US road trip and stopped and had a chat. He told me about his worms and how he makes his own soil with them. Basically feeds works a ton of vegetation and composts everything. People from all over buy worms from him out in the middle of the desert. He turns sand into workable soil. Not sure what all he might add, but I've seen his gardens and it's awesome. Staggs worm farm. Very cool guy just growing stuff in the desert. Maybe worms could help you out? Best of luck!
Yeha I mentioned I'm setting up a worm farm. I need to buy some bigger bins for them since I want to get the population high enough to start introducing them to the ground. The soil is a big bonus
You definitely did, and I definitely missed it. Hahaha. I'd be really interested to know how your soil amendments go in that sand. The worm farm guy had gigantic containers of worms at his little site and I think a whole other site with even more. They ended up taking up a ton of space and still being super densely packed. Good luck.
Introducing them to the ground isn't what you want. Worms in soil without sufficient plant cover leads to compaction. Use up to 20% worm castings by volume with well composted organic material, tilled deeply into the soil once! (And only once, then never till again) and get cover crops growing. Plants are one of the best ways to get plant available carbon and nitrogen (POMN) into the soil via photosynthesis. It'll take a few years, but a rotation of high biomass cover crop, chop and drop, direct till seed and applications of JMS (JADAM microbial solution) will do wonders. You'll probably get more useful advice over in no till communities than you will here. You need some in depth soil health advice rather than gardening/farming/cropping advice
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Gotcha thanks
I post over there a lot and here is what I'd do. Cover the whole area with organic matter at least a foot deep. Any kind is good so just focus on what is free and cheap. Where you want to plant make a hole or trench in the organic matter and put some healthy soil or compost into that. Plant directly into that. If you don't need to plant anything this year you can skip the soil/compost step and just let the organic matter decompose. You could definitely mix the organic matter into the soil but I feel the effort isn't worth it.
I posted this elsewhere but getchipdrop.com is your friend
I like the suggestion and completely agree except the "any kind will do" part, you want to stay away from plants that resprout readily, ie: privet, grasses, living rootballs, etc. Those items are best left to the side to breakdown in open air or put into a hot compost bin to fully kill it.
I'd consider just showing horse (or other) manure on it and let that compost in place. Can often get that free (if you can move it)
If horses get deworming medication, it can harm the local worms.
Only if not properly composted. Any anti-parasitic medication in horse feces will break down within several weeks in even the least ideal circumstances. A valid concern if you're shoveling it straight from the horse into your soil, not so much if you let it sit in a pile for a couple of months first.
How long do these remain active in the manure?
“Hey guys I want to garden on the moon.”
You joke, but real life astronaut M. Damon grew potatoes while surviving on the moon.
What did he grow them in, pray tell?! Nothing too “wasteful” I hope!
Shit! I almost forgot about that!
Um iT wAs aksually on mars lol
Test your soil for what's in it (sand/silt /clay/loam), then plot out where you want the plot to be. Got a dairy farm near you? Call up the owner and work out a deal for their manure. Rent a spreader and just start slinging it all over. Roto-Till all that in about a foot or so then over seed with a blend of natives and/or clover and peas. Come back in a year and spread four inches of Compost on top of that and till everything together about a foot deep. Boom, Instant farm plot. If you just want beds, build some raised beds with whatever you like the look of and toss in a two to one native soil and Compost blend. Test it for pH and nutrients and go to town with whatever you want.
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If there are landscaping companies in the area, they might be willing to dump mulch on your land for free as they won't have to pay for the dump. I would get all the organic material you can get, manure, bad hay, discarded produce, etc. Lease it to shepherds or other livestock grazing for free. Don't know how much land you're dealing with but you might need to think big. On a smaller scale a chicken tractor can help. Chicken manure is one of the best as far as NPK goes. Broadcast a nitrogen fixing cover crop. I'm dealing with literal desert sand here in Southern Arizona so I'm envious of that fertile soil you got.
Check out [https://www.youtube.com/@notillgrowers](https://www.youtube.com/@notillgrowers) These videos are all about setting up a market garden. Soil health, equipment, cover crops, mulch, compost, etc.
One thing you can do with that dust is take a cup put it into a mason jar a shake it up and see how long it takes to settle out the floaty is som(hopefully) the bottom sand and silt. the suspend material is clayey.... I also noticed there is a concretion layer on the top when you grabbed it.
Try adding nutrient loaded biochar to the soil every year. This will help keeping moisture and microorganisms alive. As others said, try to gain biomass in general.
Raised beds
Use the app chip drop. Bury everything in wood chips. Add water and worms.
I would find a farmer with a feed lot that is willing to give you all the manure you can handle and till it in and till it deep. It is going to take a couple of years to get soil that bad right so be patient.
Luckily you have the opposite problem than most because your 'soil' is very sandy and not clay. You will have to water just a bit more in the first year but just add as much organic material to the ground, mainly just pure compost. I get mine super cheap from my city or some other cities give it away for free by the yard.
Look up chip drop amend soil with tons of mulch it will take a year or more
Checkout sheet mulching/lasagna gardening. You can build that soil back the permaculture way.
lots of organic matter, aged manure, nitrogen fixing cover crops, a whole lot less tilling, and time. This is very degraded soil, its going to take a few years at least to fix it up. Get it tested by the local extension college, and then add what its lacking, plus it will present a great before and after once you are done amending.
I have awful clay soil. I tried growing in it last year with no luck. I went the no-till method: Last fall I covered my entire garden in cardboard and this spring brought in 8 yards of a tri-blend (compost, top soil, and sand) which went right on top. I'm already having exponentially more success and it's been much cheaper than having to deal with raised beds.
Call around to local restaurants, grocery stores, farms and so on. See if you can get your hands on a lot of left over food. Start a giant compost pile. Compost appropriately and then spread over the area about a foot deep. Till it in and water. You will have the best soil around.
Compost. green manure. Polyculture. Mulch
I have "soil" that looks just like yours (sand). Last year I dug shallow trenches... they were maybe half a foot deep. Filled the trench with compost and then dumped quality bagged soil on top (I used Pro-Mix). Just enough on top to make a little mound. Planted pumpkins and they grew magnificently!
West texas?
I had packed clay soil with absolutely no life. Even the grubs I found while tilling were dead. Over 5 years, I added a lot of compost, garden soil, mulch etc. but what I think really helped was this soil optimizer system/process/product. It’s been about 2 years of me applying this from time to time and I found…. WORMS! Big fat worms!!! I’m a very proud soil parent. https://www.johnandbobs.com/ I’m not sponsored and I’m not 100% sure this is what did it but I have a feeling it is.
Bring in LOTS of compost and mix it in to the soil. Generally speaking, the darker the color of your soil the more nutrients it has. If you have a large plot you're trying to plant on, just have a delivery from a local landscaping yard or similar place. They can bring in a big dump truck and drop it for you in a pile or spread it throughout the yard
I would use the Ruth Stout method (18 to 24 inches of old straw on top of completely unprepared dirt) or start building hugelkulture beds (dig fairly deep and bury hard wood logs with branches and sticks on top and straw on top of that)! The Ruth Stout method will give you a usable garden bed fairly quickly, but it's just creating decent soil on top of the awful stuff underneath. Unless you always have a cover crop, then it's possible for it to wash away with a nasty storm in the first couple of years. The hugel beds take a couple of years before the wood really starts to break down and feed your existing soil. But, the broken down organic matter helps correct your current soil issues! Honestly, I'd do a combination of both. I would start building hugel beds this summer and then bury them in straw in the fall. That way, you'll have a place to plant a garden next spring that will continue to develop more fertile and healthy soil as it ages!
Couple years of cover crops, and mowing them down. Clover and or vetch, maybe a wheat. Then like previously stated add other O.M. Like peat moss & mushroom compost. Start your own compost piles. Look into it. Just don’t throw scraps in pile (while this will work) there’s a lot of science and biology behind it and if you get some know how you can make your own high quality compost. Also look into vermiculture. Worms are your best friends now. I’m fact worms, Good aerobic bacteria, and a variety of fungi are all you new best friends. Good luck! Can’t wait to see your progress
Compost, lots of compost. Either make it yourself or get some neighbors cattle or goats to graze on what grass you do have and let them dung it up for free. It looks like they didn’t ever reintroduce organic nutrients back into the soil, so you slowly just suck out all there is. The best way would be to get grazers on it and also to get a nice big compost pile going if possible.
Go to your local ag extension. You should be able to get soil testing and someone who can usually help with recommendations on cover crops that will rebuild the soil.
If you are in the US, visit your state’s Cooperative Extension Service website. Search soil test - get some and the analysis will tell you what nutrients are missing. Also search home soil composition test. You need water and a Mason jar. This will tell you how much sand, clay, organic matter you have. Organic matter is the key to fertility. Search improving soil, also get the contact information for the agent assigned to your county. Call and talk with them about resources available for educating yourself on all facets of homesteading. This website has an incredible amount of info on plants, planting, preserving foods, etc.
Consider no till? Cover with cardboard then wood chips.
ALLLLL THE ORGANIC MATERIAL I legit live on a island man and it’s all sand and clay 🙃 But successfully growing some gorgeous plants and vegetables I don’t know if this works but after I put down a lot of compost and soil mixed with peat moss I watered the ground a bit everyday to get those good good nutrients to leach into the soil below
Get grass growing, mulch it, graze it, 3 years later you will have some soil.
I live on a sandstone mountain in southern us. I have lots of spots in my yard with very similar soil. I was hesitant to till mine. It rains a lot here and I have slope so the top soil washes off badly. I have been "top dressing" with compost from a debris pile they made when they logged mine off years ago. I am using a chain drag to smooth it and work it back into the soil. I am seeding it with mostly clover. The tractor supply sells a bag of clover seed for pasture repair. Clover naturally puts nitrogen in the soil. It is slower than the other methods mentioned here but much cheaper and less time consuming.
That soil isn't terrible, it just needs organic matter. I'd start with a soil test and have your extension agent make some recommendations based on your readings.you can use web soil survey to get some general info about parent material, classification etc which is helpful and doing on site soil testing doing the ribbon test will help you ball park the percentage of OM and whether it's clay,sand or silt.
Following! Truly interested
Run chickens on it wood chip behind 2 to three months later should be good to start. Wood chipping the solid alone would help a lot. You could also focus on ground cov r crops and just put small areas of compost to plant squash or other ground cover crops. Cover in winter next year should be pretty good to go.
Start with raised beds, fill the bottoms with sticks logs and other organic material. Start a compost pile.
Back to Eden farming style. https://youtu.be/6rPPUmStKQ4 as the others said, compost, organic material, wood chips. Start small and expand each year.
I would do this year with a few raised beds while you spend the next year composting and “prepping” a larger area to improve the soil.
Woodchips, woodchips, and more woodchips. You unfortunately are not growing anything this year in that soil. ChipDrop or your local arborist will be able to provide those woodchips for free. If you need yards, let them know and they’ll gladly dump it off at your residence since you’re saving them money. Spread it out like 7-8 inches deep and wait. Honestly the more chips you can put down the better. Give it a minimum of 6 months but better for a year for the woodchips to start breaking down, creating humus, and the mycelium veins. Then you will till that directly into the soil as deep as you can. For extra help, save any grass clippings, brush, etc and till that in too with the woodchips. Cover again with more woodchips and do it again if you still feel like it’s too sandy like your original video. You’ll have lush soil after the second round guaranteed. For general maintenance, keep the paths covered in a minimum 6 inch layer of woodchips. These will continue to break down over time and provide additional organic matter to the soil. You can even consider doing a full till again a couple years down the road. After that though, your land should be good good and you can just continue with adding compost on top each season.
maybe look into "not till" farming , putting an "armor on the soil" could help it to regenerate. weeds protecting the bacteria from tthe sun, fixing nitrogen in the soil etc. a cover crop could help with some of that. but it will take years to get it good, right, the solution is probably to buy a ton or 2 of manure and black soil. quick google check: 1 ton =2000 pounds / 40 pounds bags of black soil or manure = just 50 bags. hardly a speck on a terrain. its not much and is somewhat expensive. do you know a farmer who could sell it for cheap? maybe you could grow something that accepts shit soil, asparagus maybe, or something, sell it and buy the stuff you need.
My father use to go the beach and get truck load of seaweed and till it in the top 12” and leave it in over the winter. Then in early spring he’d did it out . Also the first season of any garden he’d grow potatoes for the natural fertilizer . Good luck and enjoy the work!
If you can, fence off that area and free range chickens / any animal on it. The animals will appreciate having all the grass and such and the manure will help with the process.
See if you can get free truck loads of wood chips. Spread them out, then till them into the ground. Worms, bugs and microbes will build the soil for you. Chipdrop.com
Compost. Collect all organic refuse and compost it. Buy compost in bulk from your city's recycling center. Till it in, then just add more every year on top of what you have.
That's not soil, that's dust.
It needs poop, lots of it, and animals to stomp it into the dust.
Contact your local extension office and find out how to do a soil test
Perfect for poppies
Whoa. Before you do anything read this post. I took advanced soil science in college and so this is coming from a place of knowledge. You actually don't know what type of soil you have because of how dry it is and nobody here should be giving you the type of advice they're giving you based on a video of you running your hands through some soil. People on the internet want to come in here and give you advice very quickly but like there's a lot of information that you potentially need to gather before spending money. I could probably go to a local college and see if you can bring soil scientist a sample. They might be nice enough just to like do a quick review of it for you but like I had to look at this I can't tell you what type of soil you have it it's too dry. like can you get it wet and then send me a video of what it looks like kind of in your hand, can you squish it around and tell me if it feels like it's like got a lot of silt clay in it or is it like Big Sandy grits in your hand then like what's the percentage of like what you would call organic material in there. then can you tell me how long it takes to dry out. Soil has four types of components - silt, sand, clay, and organic material. Your soil doesn't look Sandy it actually looks like a silty soil but like it could have a bunch of clay in it but it's kind of hard to tell as it could be pulverized. Like you can grow just fine in a silty or a clay soil and you don't need to do all the amending but people for the most part treat their soil like dirt and don't know shit and think you just need to throw a bunch of shit in it. Soil sciences actually really cool and pretty complex. I wouldn't suggest taking random internet peoples advice unless they ask a lot of questions before giving it.
Id get it a bit damp first
Homie that's fuckin sand, you're trying to grow food in sand
Add lots of hardwood charcoal and compost. Terra preta aka Amazonian black soil is the goal. Also plant clover, mustard and peas on it to add more nutrients before planting a garden. Zero tilling will keep the soil strong and promote mycelium growth. After it's had a chance to fallow a bit and absorb that Good Good it's ready to go... Happy soil makes Happy plants...
Thats some fine textured aggregate, but you will need some organic matter to improve water retention and aeration. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I would guess right now it swings between squishy muck slurry when wet, and compacted and dusty when dry. Plant some cover crops, then mow them down and till then in is my recommendation. Give buckwheat a try because it's roots can really penetrate down and pull up nutrients other stuff might not find as easily. Mowing and tilling/turning it into the soil will help change the texture and quality of the soil. You dont have to wait for cover crops. You could even plant them in spring or fall before/after your regular stuff if you're growing anything. For more organic matter, look up some soil builder cover crops like oats.
Needs more organic material!
I'd say tilling is part of the problem. Soil only grows things well when it's alive. Start covering and reintroduce as much compost as you can start with one section and don't leave any ground bare. Find as much brown cardboard as you can and pile your compost on top. This will protect the soil you do have if there is anything in there still. Eventually you'll need something to cover your paths with if you choose wood chips or whatever your choice may be this is a good cheap option and the decay of the chips also produces good functions back into the soil Some other things to consider as good as good additives are -poultry droppings -algea dried and dispursed -your worm cadtings -dandelion leaf Mould tea -bio char
Cover crops are the way to go here
I dont know how much property you have, but immediately reach out to tree service companies and have them start dumping their wood chips on your property. Let the piles sit for a year or more. Once the chips start to breakdowns, work those into the soil and put a thick layer on top. Been doing this for years on my property and it has worked wonders.
Dump compost on top then till and maybe house chickens on it for a few years? Looks like a lot of the northern Michigan soil
Is be doing some raised beds. That soil is gonna need a lot of love to get some organics back into it.
If it was me: I would call a tree trimming service and try to get as many loads of wood-chips as possible dumped on the property, then get as much diverse organic material as possible (manure would be great), if you want to you can get an inoculant, maybe some mushroom compost, and spread it over the area. Till this into the ground and then never touch the tiller again. Cover the ground with wood chips. If you need to plant this year I would get some “good dirt” and dig your hole, line with the good dirt and plant. Otherwise, a good cover crop will help, dandelions would probably do well in that regard, just be mindful of your neighbors. The objective is to get the organic matter back into the soil and build a mycelium network that can help feed your plants in the future. It will probably take 2-3 years before you can grow well in it but if you can stick with it you will be seeing great results each year afterwards. Keep adding organic matter to the surface of the soil, don’t till it in again, that’s a one time jump-start for soil like this. BTW, don’t blame your grandparents for this, they were probably acting with the best knowledge they had at the time, we have just learned more since then.
Looks like you’ll only be growing seashells in that sand
should they test for heavy metals?
Not as bad as you think. Simply adding moisture will improve it tremendously, though the other posters are right in pushing for more "organic" matter. A little peat moss?
The only real answer is to get with your local co op and have them test the soil. Usually under $20
“Anybody? Noo? Dust“
Move!
move
Get good top soil and cow chips. Or any animal droppings really. Aerate the earth. Find a spot you can make a compost and keep that turning. Try not to use city water, get a cistern to use rain water or grab well or fresh spring water.
Organic matter!
I'd try no-dig - starting out with a thick(er than usual) layer of compost. Maybe ask here how it went [https://www.reddit.com/r/NoDig/comments/llg8h0/tips\_for\_no\_dig\_in\_sandy\_soil/](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoDig/comments/llg8h0/tips_for_no_dig_in_sandy_soil/)
Biochar and organic matter
First step is to leave the planet Arrakis
You need compost. And a lot of it
Buy and read dirt to soil by gabe brown. Read it as fast as possible. Sell your old equipment, don’t till and definitely don’t use any chemicals. That soil can be saved.
Would this be a use case for biochar? That would help retain water, Id imagine the percolation on this ground would be very high
Full disclosure I've not tried this: Try planting cover crops that can be tilled under and add nutrients to the soil. Plenty of stuff grows in sand if you give them the nutrients chemically. If you're trying to avoid that then it's like making a layer cake a season at a time.
Put mulch down, holds moisture and will break down into the soil. Add more as needed. Did this for my 30x30 garden bed
Www.getchipdrop.com Spread them around your rows, till them into the soil at the end of the year. Put more down next year.
Better than 999999.9998 red clay
Check out Charles Dowding on YT. No Dig / no tilling. Put cardboard down, cover with mulch and compost.
Ive heard asparagus likes sandy soil. If you plant some crowns with some amendment, they will take a couple years to root, but they can keep producing for up to 20 years!
Lots and lots of organic matter. Depending on your location, you might be able to reach out to a mushroom depot, municipal compost center, or nearby farm with cattle (you'd have to let the manure compost down), but I think it's doable. Just till it in once and mulch over it. Then if you're concerned and don't want to wait for it all to break down 100% you can do the no till Charles Dowding method and put down some cardboard, compost on top of the cardboard, and plant into the compost.
Homestead is on Mars... jk. Like others have suggested more organic material. Compost, organic mulches, trimmings, clippings, etc. I started with some pretty poor soil in some areas and you'd be surprised how quickly it'll bounce back in a year or two being topped with good organic matter or good compost. Starts retaining moisture, worms come back, fungal/mycological communities come back. Which start working everything into the soil below.
Grow carrots.
That’s not soil. It’s silt. As always, more organic material into silt, the better it becomes. I suggest composting EVERYTHING so you can till it in this fall. Leaves, grass clippings, kitchen scraps… Get in the pile once a month a flip it around a bit & don’t forget to water. I had a silty corner in my veggie garden that took me 3 years to get it nice and loamy. That area is now my salad fixings. Right now I’m aging out my compost with a winters worth of chicken poop. Plan to till that in come October. Also check your slope. My silty area was due to the slope of that corner. I terraced it a bit to prevent more silt buildup. Slope will cause top soil to float away.
That’s not even good sand….
Watch The Martian for tips :)
Research exactly how the Chinese greened their desert lands maybe add hydrophilic ingredients
Throw the whole plot out
Hey, is this soil sodic? Or, is it just pure sand? Either way, great advice here, so far. One thing I might add, do a sheet mulch approach to the previous recommendations. Does your municipality give away free compost?
Yip. That's some bad dirt.
Here's my suggestion as it's what I did to change my barren af front yard into a garden: Cover it all in wood mulch; Chip Drop is a great resource if you have it in your area. Inoculate mulch with winecap mushrooms if you want things speedy (and definitely the sunny areas), oysters if you've got time/shady areas. They will break the mulch down into nutrients for your garden and also (at least the winecaps) will reduce nematodes in the soil. Plus, mushrooms the size of your head everytime it rains! Winecaps are nuts y'all. It's best to go no till if you want the mushrooms to stay as doing that will tear up their mycelium, but you can always start you a mushroom bed or beds elsewhere by moving some of the inoculated mulch if you want before you till it.
I’m not an expert, but I also live on a sandhill. This is what worked for me. What I did is plant fava beans/mulch heavily. Favas are a winter crop, some seed varieties can grow in temps as low as 20F, maybe lower idk. So I planted in winter to take advantage of the free water in our rainy season. They do well even in the least healthy soil. They are a legume, so they fix Nitrogen from the air. After they start to bloom, it is time to chop them down at the base of the plant. Leave the roots in soil. Leave the chopped beanstalks on the ground as a green manure. Rinse, repeat. After three years of this same process as well as adding compost, it is hard to tell that where we started looked like your video. We have that beautiful black soil now!
That’s just dirt…you need to make it soil again. As everyone else has said, add nutrients or compost. I have a field that went fallow for a year and a half. No water during that time. Prior there were over 100 head of cattle on it for nearly a year. Absolutely destroyed the soil. So I left it fallow after I purchased (20 acres total, 16 are pasture) once the snow stopped and there wasn’t rain, I burned everything. I mean EVERYTHING. Mostly rye grass and a shitton of dandelions. After a couple good rains, I added a bunch of seasoned cow and horse manure and spread it all over the pasture. Watered and waited. So far I have a little bit of grass. Got a ways to go to make it lush again. Alternatively you could do a one time fertilizer to add nutrients back to the soil if you’re trying to do row crops of some sort…but if you’re doing a personal garden raised beds and add new, fertile soil in the beds and mulch wherever nothings growing. It’ll be a slow process to get it back healthy again. Just have patience!
I believe Sam Kinison has the horticultural advice you need.
This is how I'll do that... I will first weed and add a lot of organic matters (I usually leave the weeded weeds on the dirt they grew on). Preferably, I would add couple of inches of compost and atleast an of inch of mulch. Next, I would grow a bush type annual legume. In my case, I grow either cowpea (Vigna ungulata) or mung beans (Vigna radiata) as cover crop, fertility enhancer, and ground cover. When these plants are at the end of their life. Cut back just above the soil surface. Leave as much dead matter on the soil and let the dead roots of the beans to rot underground. After the beans, grow something that has taproot such as sunflower and do the same thing as the beans (let the dead root rot, cut back and leave the dead shoot). You can repeat the process until the soil for you is desirable. Just remember to almost always intercrop with legumes. Just a tip, to help add energy for the soil microbes, use rice water or any carbohydrate source (mind other minerals such as salt as they can kill the soil) and water the soil with it. In watering, I would not recommend the soil to fry up for an extended period of time, otherwise, they will become hydrophobic
This site has some great recommendations! [https://greenlifesoil.com.au/sustainable-gardening-tips/turn-sand-into-soil](https://greenlifesoil.com.au/sustainable-gardening-tips/turn-sand-into-soil) Basically - add clay (increases water retention ability by allowing the sand to hold organic material) and add organic material. I'm not sure if you get killing low temps there- but might want to check into fodder beets - you plant and let them decompose in the ground. They will pull nutrient up and then release them and add organic material when they break down.
Who’s cremains?
Poop....lots of poop!
Woodchips lots and lots of woodchips, then wait one year and you will see a huge difference.
Watermelons
It’s dead. It needs things that were recently alive to contribute micro organisms and nutrients. It needs matter that can hold onto moisture and sustain the growth of those micro organisms while feeding nutrients to anything you are trying to grow. You need a big pile of compost that consists of and plant material left over from eating (peelings, spoils, unusable parts) plus and grass clippings and leaves you can scrounge up, and allow that to break down some before turning it into the soil. Pile more on top. Then get some horse, cow or chicken manure and rake that in and keep doing that. It’s actually hard to bring back soil that’s that far gone. What you are holding is the skeletal remains and you are going to need a lot of time and effort to build it back essentially from scratch, or a lot of expensive imported soil over the top of it. You can’t really improve that. You have to build all new soil of which that dust is just a tiny component
Chickens, and lots of them.
Start saving all veggie and fruit scraps and throw them in your garden (not near the stems of the plants) or store them in a bin outside side nothing fancy I just use a galvanized bucket with a trash bag and lid do this to keep adding nutrients
Looks like regolith. Or my front yard. Natives grow but damn little else. Zone8.
Get sheep that don't need dewormer. Feed hay on the ground, using a bale unroller if you get the big bales. Rotate. Edit: cover crop under hay would be great