more on that gravel...

[loligo]

So I added a few new plants to that bed that had the Hidden Gravel Surprise. First off, I discovered that there were roots growing both above and below the gravel layer, so breaking through the gravel beneath each plant as I planted them last year was at least an adequate strategy. But removing the gravel from the new planting holes this year was not easy. Prying out some of the larger rocks turned out to be pretty brutal on the stray roots wandering through the area, plus it totally disarranged the soil profile. In a rock-free bed I would have been able to just nudge the soil and any roots aside and slip the new plant in.

So my conclusion is that if you're going to do all your planting at one time, you can skimp on the effort and just remove the gravel below each plant, but if it's going to be an ongoing project, get ALL the gravel out first!

Comments

[supermouse]

I've been told that growing a crop of potatoes is an easy, cheap but slow method of breaking bad or heavy soil.

[panik]

Second this. It works fabulously well, but you need tremendous quantities of mulch to make it work.

[rialian]

===As a side-note...nifty icon...Did you make it, or did it get made for you? (I admit the desire to snag it)

[panik]

I hand-crafted it with my own fair digits so please feel free, I'd be honoured. :o)

[helen99]

I have so much gravel in my garden that I'm slowly paving my driveway with it. It's actually very relaxing to go out with a bucket and a wheelbarrow (actually a cart would work better) and fill it up with as many rocks as we can navigate with. Then we dump them into the potholes on the gravel driveway. Once we get enough gravel out of an area of the garden plot, we're starting to create raised beds using sheet mulching and log borders. The thing is, the garden area is on top of a hillside made of sandstone, so there's really no way we're going to be able to remove all of it. Instead we're planning to add to the topsoil layer, since if we dig downward there's just more gravel (which keeps rising to the surface as we dig it out).