Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Liz <liz@allslash.org>]

At 06:51 AM 1/9/2008, you wrote:
> I gotta tell you
> that 18" sounds like a real dream to us.  The soil here is
> 6" - 12" of poor clay on top of 500' of limestone.  Still,
> limestone is cracked and pretty porous.  Even without raised beds
> you can grow a garden.  With just 6" raised beds you can't tell
> that all that rock is down there.
>  

Part of my garden is over a cap of soapstone, so I know exactly what
you're talking about. And all of it started out as poor clay, further
degraded by having been a tobacco field for decades. I can't rave enough
about raised beds, and mine are only about 6" too. The first one is
deeper than that, but I got lazy with the others.

Liz in SW VA
http://life-as-a-spectator-sport.com