make my dirt

MAKE MY DIRT
make my dirt
thats what ive decided to do this year
in my keyhole garden that ive made from an old
watering trough

in a recent blog on how to do this
well ive done several blogs about keyhole gardens
see lists to the right of this blog and click on
keyhole garden
heres a link on how to do it

dr deb tolman a guru of the keyhole garden in texas did a
demonstration garden in a small town in central texas
where she took old rocks and clay and made a frame for
her keyhole garden
in the garden she made her own soil
she used lots of old phone books newspapers and manure
and mixed it all up
whala after several months she had soil that was producing
great crops

when i did my keyhole garden with its central composter i
did it the simple way and added the natural gardeners hill
country soil that has composts, minerals, good germs, granite
etc in it
i dumped it in the old water trough up to about 6 inches from
the top
that worked well until we finally started getting rain
the soil gradually settled down another 6 inches

so i decided to try what dr deb did
and make my own soil
heck the country n hens are busy mixing up old newspapers
cardboard leaves kitchen scraps and pooping all over it
every day in my large compost pile
they were basically making her soil for me

first i took leaves (i am a leaf rescuer as ive rescued over
50-100 bags of leaves from friends this year) and layered them
with shredded cardboard and with shredded several weeks of newspapers

then i added a layer of good ole chicken manure compost
which is high in nitrogen
this is straight from the chickens butt and is lightly mixed with leaves
then place in its own compost pile

then i added composted dirt that the country n hens have been working
on for several months

this is all mixed together
all i need to do is add rain
and add handful of worms

by the end of summer i will have the richest soil on my property and
will plant my fall garden there

cost of all this
zero
old trough was here when i moved in
it leaked so i used it for this garden
we get the newspaper every day and usually compost it in my
compost pile or take it to my wifes shes school to recycle
the cardboard was from things we have bought or was given to us
then the leaves were rescued from the curb side

free dirt

now all i need to do is wait and add lettuce spinach swiss chard
carrots kale italian parsley garlic onions etc in october
pictures to follow

the organicgreen doctor