Last fall, hubby and I located a great, huge pile of lovely, wonderful, rich black dirt. I told him, "I want that! I want a LOT of that!"
So early this spring, we looked into getting some of it transported into our yard. We talked with our good neighbor (who has the heavy equipment business) about hauling it for us. It happens he and his wife have been wanting to get into gardening and have been developing a small plot behind their house. Hauling some of the soil for us would be no problem, D said, plus he'd be interested in getting some of it for their garden area. A win-win situation.
We had to wait for the huge pile of black dirt to thaw. This required a bit of patience since our cold winter weather lasted so long into spring this year. But finally everything was in place and our dirt was scheduled to arrive.
This morning shortly before 8 a.m., we heard the rumble of one of D's dump trucks.
Oh, oh, oh! Here it comes! I was so excited!
Oh, my. Will you look at that beautiful stuff.
A big bunch of that beautiful stuff! (Suddenly, the soil we've built up in our pumpkin patch doesn't look so great, does it, Lisa?)
Five cubic yards of rich, black soil. We got busy and wheelbarrowed it into all of the raised beds we replaced last year that ended up a little short on dirt.
Since the black dirt came from a swampy area, it was most likely on the acidic side so we spread wood ashes over the added dirt in the beds to add some alkalinity. I'll till everything in before planting each bed.
There's still a lot of dirt left in the pile, but you can be sure I'll use every last bit of it . . . and be pickled tink to have it!!
15 comments:
That should perk up your garden, can't wait to see those plants growing like crazy.
Ohhhh how wonderful! We need to buy some soil to go in the flower and veggie beds but it's expensive. We'll buy a few bags at a time.
I really need to start some type of a compost pile but I can't decide where to put it. The best spot for it is right beside the neighbours house and I don't think they'd appreciate that. LOL!
Love it Mama Pea! Black dirt just jerks my skirt up!
Tombstone Livestock - Yepper, it will be like a shot in the arm! Now I really need something to perk up my body after moving and hauling all that dirt today! Oooofff!
Sparkless - No matter how well you manage your compost pile, there are times when you'd just as soon not be down wind of it! I never thought how hard the positioning of same would be if you had close neighbors. Nice of you to be so considerate.
DFW - Haha! Never heard that expression before, but it kinda says it all!
Oh that looks marvelous. I should be going down either this weekend or the beginning of next week to get a load of composted dairy manure. There is a great company out here that I drive past every day on the way and home from work.
Oh. My. Gawd.
I think I just had a gardening orgasm. Really.
Where did you find that black gold?!? On your property?!
Sweet. If I had a source like that I'd take the plunge and build raised beds.
Wow!!! That's some BEAUTIFUL dirt!!!!! We have a neighbor with heavy equipment, sure is handy ;)
Jacqueline Jones - Welcome and thanks for commenting!
Composted dairy manure is GOOOOOD stuff! So is composted horse manure which hubby and I were just talking about this past week. We have plenty of composted manure from our poultry, but cow or horse manure would be good to add to the mix.
Carolyn - Control yourself, m'dear. This is a G-Rated blog. ;o}
If that black gold was on our property we'd be rich! Believe me, we had to pay for it but you don't see it very frequently up here where 100' pine trees grow out of what looks like solid rock! After the pile was dumped yesterday, I had an almost overwhelming urge to do a belly flop in it face first.
tpals - I love our raised beds which we've "made" soil for over the last 17 years. But finding a source for this stuff to add to the beds is almost too good to be true.
Kelly - Heavy equipment IS handy . . . and so much faster than using a wheelbarrow or buckets! ;o} Which is what we did most of the day yesterday to get the soil into the beds. This morning I have my first ever backache up high between my shoulder blades . . . I wasn't very bright and hauled five gallon pails of the dirt! I exclaimed to hubby that it was amazing how heavy the dirt was and he said, "Well, it's basically ground rocks, ya know." Duh.
(Boy, am I behind in my reading!) That was some horkin big load of dirt! I makes me all nostalgic for that good ole Ohio bottom land - the loamy black stuff of my first gardens. Now I am dealing with the same soil (using the term loosely) that you have. That sure is a whole lot of wheelbarrow-load-fulls!
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