How to Prepare a Garden Bed

If your ground is dry and hard, give it a good watering two or three days in a row before you begin the work. Once you have worked some moisture in the soil, pull all weeds in the bed. If this is a brand-new bed, you probably need to till the soil to a depth of eight to ten inches. The easiest way is to use a rototiller. Rent one or borrow one from a friend. DO NOT BUY ONE. The last thing anyone needs is a small engine that you might use once a year. You’ll spend more time fixing it and getting it to run than you will tilling. Believe me, I know.

If you need a workout, use a cotton hoe.

Once you get the soil tilled for the first time, you’ll probably never need to do it again if you follow these practices.

Sprinkle some dry organic fertilizer over the freshly-tilled bed according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Right now, I’m using Medina Growin’ Green granular fertilizer. You can buy 40 lb. sacks of it at La Grange Farm and Ranch. Micro-Life makes several different kinds of dry organic fertilizers that work great, too. The Micro-Life products are available at Sutherland’s in La Grange.

You should also add some rock minerals to your soil if you have never done so before. I use a product called Azomite, which is usually available at Sutherlands. You can also use lava sand, but I’ve never been able to find it locally. Apply according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Some people say rock dust produced in commercial gravel operations can also be used to mineralize the soil, but I’ve never tried this. You probably only need to apply rock minerals once every few years.

I also like to add molasses to the soil to improve microbial life and to deter fire ants (I know it seems counter-intuitive for some, but that’s a topic for another column). I often apply liquid molasses several times through the growing season. But bed preparation is a good time to put out some dry molasses. It works just as good for microbial life and maybe even better than liquid for fire ant control. Most feed stores sell dry molasses as a livestock feed additive. You can get it in 50 lb. sacks. Apply at a rate of 20 lbs. per 1,000 sq. ft.

Texas organic gardening guru Howard Garrett recommends putting out whole-ground corn meal at this time as well. Garrett says it provides nutrients and organic matter to the soil and helps to prevent some plant diseases. I just began researching this topic and have never used it before in the garden, but I do plan to give it a try in some of my Fall beds. Garrett says to apply at a rate of 20-40 lbs. per 1,000 sq. ft. He says to use whole ground cornmeal. Make sure the product says “whole ground” on the label. The cheapest solution would be to buy some 50 lb. sacks of deer corn and find someone to grind it for you. Some of you folks might even have an old corn grinder in a shed somewhere. You can also use cracked corn. It may take a little longer to break-down in the soil, however.

Most importantly, add about an inch of compost to the bed. The summer heat will have burned most of the organic matter away from the soil. We need to constantly replenish organic matter year after year in the garden. That’s what keeps the microbes in the soil alive. It gives them habitat and food. In return, the microbes break down the nutrients in organic fertilizers and rock minerals into forms that our plants can use. The very best compost is the kind you make yourself. When I have to purchase compost, I avoid products made from cow manure as they may contain herbicides. I also avoid fresh mushroom compost because it contains high levels of salts. I think it’s best to let mushroom compost sit for a few years before using it in the garden.

You should now have a soil lasagne of sorts – moist but not wet soil on the bottom, followed by thin layers of organic fertilizer, dry molasses, rock minerals and perhaps corn meal, topped with an inch of compost. I like to use a heavy-tined garden rake to mix the top two or three inches of the bed. Gently work the different materials into the soil.

Now, cover the bed with two to three inches of mulch. Mulch helps to keep moisture in the soil and prevents a lot of weeds from sprouting. The weeds that pop through the mulch are much easier to pull, in my experience.

If you recall my column from a few weeks ago, you know I’m a big fan of the wood chip mulch sold by the Fayette County Recycling Center. They’ll fill up your pickup truck bed for just $5. Wood mulch creates a great habitat for earthworms and the very beneficial mycorrhizal fungus. Earthworms aerate the soil and fertilize it with their waste. The fungus slowly breaks down the wood mulch into nutrients for your plants. Mycorrhizal fungus also forms a symbiotic relationship with many plant species.

You can also use other types of mulch such as straw or hay, but its hard to find a good source of clean straw or hay locally that has not been sprayed with chemical herbicide. Those herbicides remain active on the straw and hay long after it was cut. If you use it for mulch, it could kill or stunt your plants.

Do not mix mulch into the soil. Wood mulch mixed into the soil can rob nitrogen from your plants. For that reason, it’s important to leave it on the surface. Some folks use sheets of black plastic or fabric weed barrier as a mulch. But black plastic doesn’t add anything beneficial to the soil, so I avoid using it in my beds. Black plastic and other synthetic weed barriers are useful around the edges of the garden to keep weeds from encroaching.

Now that you have prepared the bed, let it sit for a month or two until its time to plant the Fall garden. Water the bed occasionally if we don’t get any rain. When it comes time to plant, all of those nutrients will have mellowed out and come together to give your plants a great jump start on the Fall growing season.

You don’t have to do everything I recommended. At the very least, however, you should prepare your bed with some organic fertilizer and compost, then cover with mulch. I think the other products will help to liven the soil. Howard Garrett talked about this on his radio show last Sunday. A healthy, biologically active soil full of readily-available organic nutrients will allow the plant’s immune system to reach its full potential, he said. A healthy plant immune system drives off disease and even insect pests in many cases.

When your plants get up and growing, it doesn’t hurt anything if you have to occasionally step between plants in the bed. But don’t make a habit of walking on the bed, which causes compaction. If the bed gets too compacted, you’ll need to till it again. Part of my point here is to avoid the extra work of tilling every season. Not only is it unnecessary work, but tilling breaks up the habitat for earthworms, microbes and mycorrhizal fungus that you worked so hard to build.