topping up soil

Dianne Blackburn 5/22/2010, 11:38 am

Hi All,
This is our second year with our square-foot gardening. My 8-year old daughter & I are devoting this weekend to planting, but I was wondering if we should first 'top up' the "Mel's Mix" we put in originally last year.
Any thoughts?
Thanks.
Dianne

jenjehle 5/22/2010, 1:48 pm

If I'm not mistaken in the book it says that each year it's good to add a trowel of compost to each square before planting. But personally, I removed my grid (just kite string) and added a bag of compost to the entire 4 x 4 box.

Here in town, our local garden store has bagged compost called Ultra-Go, which is a blended compost. AND it's great stuff! With the grid off the top I was able to use a large shovel to rotate and loosen my soil. Mostly b/c in my area of the country we get lots of moisture from fall through spring. So I think it helped to "fluff" things up and add some fresh soil to the box.

Not sure if this is "by the book" or not but it's what I did Smile

**herbarium** 5/22/2010, 2:19 pm

Dianne,
You only need to add compost. I don't even mix it in. I put it on top before planting and then some gets mixes in while I plant.

milaneyjane 5/22/2010, 2:30 pm

I was just thinking about the same thing for next year not more than 2 minutes ago. My boxes have settled dramatically since I filled them last week for the first time despite watering them when I filled them with the mix. I was debating if next year I should top it off with more Mel's mix or do the compost since in my mind they weren't filled all the way this year. topping up soil 601593

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