I am making a garden and soil sifting the entire bed. Is that an unwise thing...

  • Thread starter Thread starter BeLikeBenFranklin
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BeLikeBenFranklin

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...to be doing? I am not an experienced gardener. We have a horrible back yard with dead St. Augustine grass. I decided to pick out the most depressing section of the yard & create a garden. With a lot of stuff that I would think doesn't belong in the garden, I decided to make a nice soil sifter with quarter inch grate material. Shovelful by shovelful, I am turning lumps of unpleasant looking yard into beautiful, soft, unclumped soil heaven ... or so I thought. Am I making a grave garden mistake by doing this? I have read up on some internet sites that over tilling is bad. And I interpret what I am doing as the tilling job to end all tilling jobs. And not to mention that it's a back breaking prison style labor camp of a thing to be doing. Any green thumbs out there, please chime in if you have an experienced take on this. THANK YOU! Gardener in central Florida.
 
I am in the Florida panhandle and here is what I do..The soil here is mostly sand so I bought a truckload of mushroom compost micxed 50/50 with sand..It is too "sweet" to use straight, but is very nice stuff.Call around to your local idrt/gravel suppliers if you need a bulk of it..If you need a small area you can buy bags of it too but very costly this way..Also they will sell it by the small front end loader bucket fulls for around 10 dollars a scoop if you have your own little utility trailor to haul it in.. I have used this going on 9 years now..below are pictures of my garden using this. I made some raised beds for the motre compact veggies, and things like watermelons, cantaloupes, squash etcetra requiring a large vining area, I simply dug holes 3 feet around and three feet deep and put mushroom compost in the hole and planted..I "spot planted " my bell peppers, tomatoes, sqwuash, and other items tp make it go a long way, and not take up all the room in the dedicated bed...Here are some pictures, and info on mushroom compost..

http://www.mushroomcompost.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pcbeachrat/612530615/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pcbeachrat/612473883/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pcbeachrat/612530499/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pcbeachrat/612473749/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pcbeachrat/612473843/
 
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