Getting my garden going

Hello!!!

So I put a key hole garden bed together...filled it with soil... and now what??? I've had it for quite a few years I got busy with work and stuff..

My question is how do I get stuff growing??? The raised bed soil doesn't seem to grow anything.. what do I need to amend the soil with?? Do I only amend the hole I plant in or do I need to amend allll of the soil?? I want big kale and nice tomatoes and lettuce and stuff

The raised bed soil doesn't seem to grow anything.. what do I need to amend the soil with??

Do you make compost?  If not, now is a good time to start.

Do you have access to some free coffee grounds?  Check out your local coffee shops.

Grab those bags of leaves waiting to be hauled off to the landfill.

A soil test might prove to be helpful.

I just made 4 new beds. 2 I had homemade compost for which is much better but I ran out. I bought bagged cotton burr compost for the others which is decent and not break the bank too bad. I filled the bottoms with old firewood my neighbor had that was very distressed and decomposing already. Then filled with the compost. Topped off with fresh wood chips.  

Doing it this time of year should give a head start on getting some soil critters in the “bag built” beds. It’s not ideal but if you don’t have compost I felt it better to get it going now than wait till mid next year.

Also good timing to get leaves soon. They take a while to break down if you don’t shred them but you gotta start somewhere.

I let my leaves fall in place and build soil. All the leaf mold I make is from imported leaves from friends / family who pay to have them raked up.

What seeds have you tried sowing? Or what starts have you tried planting out?

How did they grow without amendments?

L. Johnson wrote:What seeds have you tried sowing? Or what starts have you tried planting out?

How did they grow without amendments?

I haven't had any luck with plants to be honest. I've tried to grow kale and tomatoes and stuff a few years ago... (I keep getting busy and forgetting about the garden)...I do remember an amaranth plant grew very well in one of the beds we made. The soil we used was just standard raised bed soil...

This year I really want to go all in and plant in every bed I made... I plan to plant a bunch of herbs, some veggies and stuff!

Anne Miller wrote:

The raised bed soil doesn't seem to grow anything.. what do I need to amend the soil with??

Do you make compost?  If not, now is a good time to start.

Do you have access to some free coffee grounds?  Check out your local coffee shops.

Grab those bags of leaves waiting to be hauled off to the landfill.

A soil test might prove to be helpful.

I'm trying to start a composting heap... no luck nothing broke down yet XD XD haha.

I'll definitely check out starbucks for coffee grounds, we got like 3 all pretty much at the same intersection lol. I also live at the edge of a forset, so I can get a bunch of leaves every year!

I'll consider a soil test as well. Need to buy a kit, prefer to do it myself maybe?

From what you've said so far it sounds like you may benefit from re-organizing your gardening situation.

If your garden is easy to forget and neglect, it's unlikely you will have very much success, even if you sporadically amend it. They say the best fertilizer is a gardener's shadow, or something like that.

I might suggest putting your garden in your way. Maybe put down some containers of soil beside the path you walk along everyday. Somewhere where it is impossible to ignore. I believe you will have more success by starting there than trying to work in a distant gardening space. Especially while you are still getting your garden going in the first place.

Edit: Also, I recommend starting small. Don't try to go all in at once. I made that mistake. If you have a busy work-life, or a busy family life, or a busy social life, and you're starting a garden it's easy to push it aside. If you have a couple pots growing a couple vegetables that are easy to grow and you like to eat, you're more likely to see it to fruition.

Once you've harvested a few delicious vegetables it's likely your success will give you a lot of motivation to expand.

Hi Amir, I had a look at some of your other threads and you definitely have some plants growing there - I like the look of your keyhole bed. If the honeysuckle is still a problem when you are trying to grow crops, you can turn that into a liquid feed! Just put the weeds into a bucket of water, put a weight on them to hold them down and leave them for a few weeks out of the way. The weeds will drown and dissolve in the water which will become a nutrient rich soup for hungry plants like kale and tomato! Warning - it probably will be a bit smelly: that's all the nitrogen you have saved for your garden. Use the weed liquid about 1:10 water when you water the plants and they will soon love you for it!
If you can get hold of some comfrey this is a plant that is grown especially as a super plant food, although any weeds will generally do and drowning them is a good way to dispose of particularly noxious ones (except maybe aquatics!). Here's a thread that goes into some detail if you're not already familiar with comfrey: Comfrey in a market garden. It does depend on your climate area as to how easy it is go get established, and how well it grows once you've got it, but it can produce lots of soft nutrient-rich biomass ideal for supplementing your soil for hungry plants. Just make sure you get one of the non-spreading forms, just in case!

Nancy Reading wrote:Hi Amir, I had a look at some of your other threads and you definitely have some plants growing there - I like the look of your keyhole bed. If the honeysuckle is still a problem when you are trying to grow crops, you can turn that into a liquid feed! Just put the weeds into a bucket of water, put a weight on them to hold them down and leave them for a few weeks out of the way. The weeds will drown and dissolve in the water which will become a nutrient rich soup for hungry plants like kale and tomato! Warning - it probably will be a bit smelly: that's all the nitrogen you have saved for your garden. Use the weed liquid about 1:10 water when you water the plants and they will soon love you for it!
If you can get hold of some comfrey this is a plant that is grown especially as a super plant food, although any weeds will generally do and drowning them is a good way to dispose of particularly noxious ones (except maybe aquatics!). Here's a thread that goes into some detail if you're not already familiar with comfrey: Comfrey in a market garden. It does depend on your climate area as to how easy it is go get established, and how well it grows once you've got it, but it can produce lots of soft nutrient-rich biomass ideal for supplementing your soil for hungry plants. Just make sure you get one of the non-spreading forms, just in case!

thank you so much for your comment! :D sorry if my post are kind of lame, I'm very beginner! What you saw growing in the keyhole bed was actually weeds LOL. There are 2 perennial herbs growing on the left side of the bed, but I had cleared the bed since of the rest of the vegetation (picture below of updated bed picture)

in the picture below you'll see some composted cow manure I bought also! I had spread some over the keyhole bed and other beds I have (I didn't fully spread over the bed yet, some of the soil is bad or something I have to remove some of the soil in the bed idk why but it looks weird like brown crumbs or something in the bed)

Omg!! I had soo much honey suckle I threw away in a garbage bag, I'll definitely try what you recommended by soaking them in water!

Yes I have comfrey but I lost some when I cleaned up my keyhole bed (sorry I wasn't thinking I accidentally removed them, kept forgetting to take them out real quick LOL), but I have a few more comfrey plants around the yard, I could always buy more :D

Updated garden pictures below I planted a bunch of garlic in all the beds and used some composted cow manure on top of the soil

If you keep forgetting about your garden, you could try growing a cover crop. It would improve the soil and keep weeds from taking over while you're not paying attention.  I like peas because the young greens are so tasty.

Jan White wrote:If you keep forgetting about your garden, you could try growing a cover crop. It would improve the soil and keep weeds from taking over while you're not paying attention.  I like peas because the young greens are so tasty.

I wish I did that before, because now I want to spend more time on it lol. but if something happens and I can't tend to the garden, I'll make sure a cover crop gets planted, good idea! I'll check out peas. I like clover too, maybe red clover?

I think you have found a good place to start. Lots of great knowledge on permies.
Second just do it.  Stick some seeds, and or seedlings in the garden, and see what happens.
Even if it doesn't work, you will gain knowledge.
Next I would recommend ollas.  The real ones are clay pots you bury in the ground. You fill it with water and the water seeps through the pores of the clay pot.  They can be expensive.  You can make your own using terracotta pots. There's lots of videos on YouTube they are very easy to make. I got a bunch of pots and the .99 cents store.  You can also use 2 l bottles. You put some holes in the bottom, put them in the soil by your plants. Put the lid back on so it takes longer for the water to run out.  Having one of these options will buy you time so you don't have to constantly be in your garden.  
For a lot of us the garden is our happy place, and have a hard time comprehending forgetting about it. I encourage anyone who can to grow veggies. To grow veggies.  They taste so much better, and are so much better for you.  It sounds like you would like to do that. It looks like you have already put a great deal on effort into it. Now I would encourage you to just do it. Watch videos on people growing what you want to grow as close to your area as you can. Go to a garden center near you, and strike up a conversation with someone choosing seeds or seedlings. Most of us gardeners love to share our knowledge.  You can just wing it, but you will probably be more successful with a little knowledge.  Example I grew up in W Washington State. If our corn wasn't knee high by 4th of July you didn't get corn. I now live in N California where we can be eating corn by 4th of July, matter of fact if we time it right we can get 3 harvest in our long season.(I used corn as an example, but I don't grow it.  It takes up so much room, and is so cheap at the farmers market, it's not worth it for me to grow). The point is it helps to know what grows best, and when to grow it.  
Good luck, and keep us posted. Happy gardening

Soil is so important.  Those bagged soils are usually sterile, needing amendments of good bacteria (weird right?) and mycelium.  

But don't listen to me - listen to the experts.  There is a new excerpt from The Garden Master Course on understanding soil.  There is so much information packed into this short video.  It definitely left me feeling like I learned a bunch, but still wanted to learn more.  This course is unlike any master gardener course I've ever seen.  

I've planted since a cover crop of clover with intentions to interplant with the clover!!

Picture attached!

I've also hand tilled the left side of my keyhole bed (same picture below) with composted cow manure and organic fertilizer and planted kale and lettuce! How's it look guy's?

I don't get much sunlight in our tiny backyard unfortunately!