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Author Top soil depth
Broadback

2005-07-25, 1:21 pm

A large area of my garden has no appreciable top soil. I have started
digging out a large bed, which I will fill with top soil. How deep,
ideally, should top soil be?
TIA
--
All replies to this email address are deleted on receipt.

Common sense, not common market.
Mike

2005-07-25, 2:21 pm

> All replies to this email address are deleted on receipt.
>
> Common sense, not common market.



Try using some then :-((

How long is a piece of string?


Mike Lyle

2005-07-25, 2:21 pm

Broadback wrote:
> A large area of my garden has no appreciable top soil. I have

started
> digging out a large bed, which I will fill with top soil. How

deep,
> ideally, should top soil be?
> TIA


The length of a piece of string is generally sufficient. Or, to put
it more helpfully, it depends what you want to grow. I'd say that for
practically anything, with "average" subsoil consistency, a spade's
depth should do you most handsomely. An awful lot of garden plants
will do fine on a fraction of that, especially if you can dig in some
organic material underneath (I wouldn't even bother to wait till the
stuff had rotted if I were in a hurry, but I know it's against the
rules). I've grown good ericas in a horrible mixture of subsoil and
stones, and other things with what amounted to only a three-inch
layer of reasonable soil and gone-off silage pricked in on top of
stony clay. There's no soil so bad that it can't be turned into good
soil.

--
Mike.


Emrys Davies

2005-07-25, 2:21 pm

"Broadback" <wen@towill.plus.com> wrote in message
news:3kkh7pFussc5U1@individual.net...
> A large area of my garden has no appreciable top soil. I have started
> digging out a large bed, which I will fill with top soil. How deep,
> ideally, should top soil be?
> TIA
> --
> All replies to this email address are deleted on receipt.
>
> Common sense, not common market.


2' or more if you can manage it. Then your taprooting plants
http://en.mimi.hu/gardening/taproot.html
will be able to grow unobstructed.

Regards,
Emrys Davies.


Mike Lyle

2005-07-25, 3:21 pm

Mike Lyle wrote:
> Broadback wrote:
>
> The length of a piece of string is generally sufficient.[...]


Sorry, I might not have said that if I'd read somebody else's reply.
A man is known by the company he keeps.

--
Mike.


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