Soggy soil

[tommyr]

Vegetable garden is soggy from all the rain. Added cornmeal in March before I planted the garden. Is it a good idea to do it again now?

[Gar]

All of our gardens are soggy, especially after the rain we got last night. If it does not rain, after lunch, I plan on working in the garden. Some last minute weed pulling and newspaper and grass clippings mulch. This is the best my garden as ever looked. Just keep adding those organic amendments and it continues to get better year over year. Oh yea, don't forget the foliar compost tea sprayings. The plants love it and it is good from them. Any lady bugs you find, put them in there also. My garden is full of them little lady bugs. I love seeing them everytime I vist the garden.

[tommyr]

Thanks for the reply Greg. Mine is getting more soggy, we got another 7/10 last night. This is my first year to go organic and the results have been great, (and expensive). Tomato plants are already huge, too large for the cages. I had to go in today and drive stakes to support the cages. I did an interesting experiment with mulch. Mulched most of the garden with alfalfa, two rows with dried tree branches (ran them through a chipper) and two rows that are just bare. Alfalfa rows are tremendous and oddly enough the bare rows look better than the dry branches. Guess it is the nitrogen factor.

[Gar]

:lol: Good to hear your garden is doing good, and welcome to the organic way of gardening. I found it is only as expensive as you want it to be. I make my own compost, so there is no expense there. I tilled in compost, dried molasses and horticulture corn meal this spring. I found it makes a big difference to mulch between the plants. I also foliar feed at least once a week with compost tea. This year, I constantly have a batch of tea brewing. I make 5 gallons at a time.

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

Watch the rows with the dried tree branches for next year. It takes awhile for the tree to decompose but from what I hear, it really makes great soil the second year. Let us know.