http://faunna.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] faunna.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] ladyjanelly 2009-12-23 05:03 am (UTC)

Ditto on the sand, sand, sand comment.

For turning lawn into bedding soil I like to break up the area with my special pitch fork and a twisty thing with tines. I think they can work around 'Augastine in ways you might like. Anyway, mix in grass-clippings, compost/manure, and sand. The gooier the more sand you need. Water it, mulch it with more grass-clippings and then a layer of wood mulch. Just use a mulch that will rot into a good soil amendment. I like an oaky mulching as opposed to pine bark for this task and not cypress at all. Something that will rot down quickly if you sprinkle a layer of grass clipping across it with regularity. Guess I never thought about the source, but it sure does look like bark scraps other diced up leftovers from industry that I'm happy are going back to the earth.

Let that lay fallow and all rot together. Sometimes, if the soil is particularly abused, it takes a second dose of amendments after the first turning. Think of the first processing as a primer coat :) About my third year here I got the eye and the knack and could prep a patch and tell it was done by the roots of any weeds that survived the mulching.



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