Posted by Sedaj Tesch on October 4, 2008 at 2:45pm
My family and I are putting in our first vegetable garden. Bear with us as we have no knowledge of gardening, but are excited to start! We are beginning small with a raised bed that was already built in our yard, and have removed 6-8 inches of the top layer of gravely soil. We plan to put in commercial planting soil and wondered how many inches is needed for a garden. Is there a commercial soil that is rated the best? Should we add anything else to the mix to make it richer? We began composting this summer and have about twenty-five pounds to add to our new garden :)
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Does anyone know if Mr. Singh also sells topsoil? Or does he sell compost only? Haven't been to his farm yet, but looks like a trip is in my near future. We are installing two raised garden beds and I'm looking for a quality topsoil to add to my mix. Its very important to me to obtain soil that is ideal for organic gardening and not tainted with unknown residues and toxins. Any help in locating soil is appreciated.
Ken Singh Farms is located on the NE corner of the 101 and Thomas. The Farm is ONLY open to the public on Saturdays, 8 AM - 2PM currently but times may change with the seasons slightly. He has great locally made compost that he monitors for quality. He sells compost by the truck bed load (usually $40-$80 per load depending on the size of the truck bed) and burlap bags that I THINK are $10 - $12 each. Huge bags.
He has different screenings of the compost. One thing to keep in mind is that his coarse compost has a bit more woody material than people are used to seeing in the bagged stuff from Home Depot. This is important because you should mix his coarse compost 50/50 with our NATIVE soil. Our native soil is not bad, just different than other parts of the country. The 50/50 mix will lessen the nitrogen depletion that can occur with more woody parts (carbon) but the larger material adds air to the mix which is important because our soil is mainly clay.
If you make a bed completely of Ken Singh Compost it will be too "active," you must mix it 50/50 with native soils. That is per Ken's own instructions, and if you know Ken, if you don't follow his instructions then don't complain about poor results cause you didn't follow his instructions! He is an amazing soil man and his information is awesome, he views soil as a living organism, which of course it is!
I start my beds at about 8 inches deep. If you don't have a truck go to Home Despot and get a few different brands of compost and mix it up. (Stay away from the mixes that have fertilizer built in, they are crap) Getting a few different brands assures that there is a little variety in the types of soil textures. (some are too fine and some are too coarse) I got this method from The Square Foot Gardening book. They also recommend adding vermiculite to aerate the mix a little and to help hold moisture. If you do this, add about a 1/2 bag to one bed. (the bags are huge) (This is optional though in my opinion.) I think about 8 bags will do a 4'x8' bed to about 8" deep.
Tenacity, I was reading older posts and saw your mention of compost via Ken Singh, but I couldn't find a link on the resources page. Could you point me in the right direction as to how to locate this business?
Replies
He has different screenings of the compost. One thing to keep in mind is that his coarse compost has a bit more woody material than people are used to seeing in the bagged stuff from Home Depot. This is important because you should mix his coarse compost 50/50 with our NATIVE soil. Our native soil is not bad, just different than other parts of the country. The 50/50 mix will lessen the nitrogen depletion that can occur with more woody parts (carbon) but the larger material adds air to the mix which is important because our soil is mainly clay.
If you make a bed completely of Ken Singh Compost it will be too "active," you must mix it 50/50 with native soils. That is per Ken's own instructions, and if you know Ken, if you don't follow his instructions then don't complain about poor results cause you didn't follow his instructions! He is an amazing soil man and his information is awesome, he views soil as a living organism, which of course it is!
Singh Farms
6929 N Hayden Rd C-4 #263
Scottsdale, AZ 86250
singhfarms@netscape.net
(480) 225-7199
Magic.
Thanks! Kathy