Can we talk about how I was watering my new raised bed garden all wrong

I was going through a ton of water until my neighbor in St. Louis pointed out that my soil mix was 70% cheap potting soil, which just dries out and repels water, instead of holding it like a proper blend with compost and topsoil should.

4 comments

4 Comments

andrew_shah1mo ago

Did you think the soil type mattered that much?

charlie1982d ago

Started watering my raised beds and felt like I was just blessing the soil instead of actually soaking it, water beaded up and ran off like I was trying to hydrate a greased duck. Had to poke holes with a screwdriver just to get moisture down past the first inch, felt like I was performing some kind of gardening exorcism. Ended up mixing in some cheap compost and a bag of topsoil from the local hardware store, now it actually drinks water instead of pretending to be waterproof. Whole thing taught me that "budget soil" is basically just shredded cardboard pretending to be dirt, learned that lesson the hard way after my tomatoes looked like they were on a hunger strike.

brooke7471mo ago

Oh man, that is such a classic rookie mistake. I did the exact same thing with my first planter box, just dumped in whatever cheap bagged stuff was on sale. It turns into this weird, dry brick that water just runs right off of. Fixing the soil mix makes a night and day difference.

the_ben1mo ago

Yeah the "dry brick" thing is so real. Did you have to completely replace all the soil or could you mix in compost to fix it?