How do I make dirt?

[cutler]

I have a cabin on a couple of acres of land next to a river and I would like to put in a garden. The problem is the land was basically created years ago when they dredged sand out of the river for navigation. It is nothing but sand as far down as I can dig.

Is there any practical way to make a lot of dirt really cheap? Purchasing top soil by the truckload is expensive.

I thought about contacting the local tree trimming companies and offer to let them dump their shredded tree parts and let it rot. Would that be a viable (but slow) solution?

[Baxtherin]

My wife and I have very sandy soil on our property also, but we happen to have 8 very productive manure making animals (our horses). We put the manure (not fresh) on the garden area in the fall and in the spring also and till it in. We now have beautiful dirt. I would look for people giving away manure for free, there are always plenty in our area. Sometime you have to load it, but if you're lucky you can find someone who will load your truck with a tractor. You'll want to be careful of putting too fresh of manure on your garden if you're planning on putting plants in right away, as it can burn them. But if you use manure that's been on the ground for the winter, you should be fine.
-Travis

[bee_pipes]

We have very poor soil here. We have been building it up each year by layering cardboard and leaves over the garden. It does take a while, but in the 3 years we've been here there is a noticeable improvement in the soil. When you plant, mulch heavily for weed control. The old mulch will add to the layers and deepen your topsoil. Sand is not necessarily a bad thing - good for carrots, radishes, turnips, beets, other root crops. Of course, you can have too much of a good thing. Are you composting? That's a good way to turn kitchen and yard waste into topsoil. Patience and perseverance - you'll get there.

Regards,
Pat

[DM]

The only FAST way i know of to get really good topsoil, or even better than that, "compost" is to buy it, or "maybe" get some out of a farmers feedlot...

I make my own topsoil and compost, but this spring i wanted a huge amount all at once, so i brought some in with my tractor from my neighbors feedlot...

http://www.fototime.com/5B7954837746FD8/orig.jpg

And here's how it looks all tilled and nearly ready to plant!

http://www.fototime.com/34A3BF3580E49B8/orig.jpg

Perhaps you can find someone who will let you clean out there barn or feedlot like i did... You don't have to have a tractor, it's just a lot faster if you do...

DM

[richard]

Egad. That sounds like a really tricky situation, since it sounds like your soil has almost no organic matter at all. As you've guessed, it will likely take years before you have healthy soil. Shredded tree bits can be an excellent way to add organic bulk to soil, but there is a problem with that: The bacteria that are able to decompose the cellulose that makes up the bulk of wood require a lot of nitrogen. For this reason, adding wood chips alone into a bed that you intend to cultivate is not recommended. Since your soil is all sand, there is probably almost no fixed nitrogen, so wood chips would take a VERY long time to properly decompose, perhaps on the order of a decade or more. You can add fertilizers such as ammonium nitrate or chicken manure (free or cheap and very high in available nitrogen... offer to muck stalls, and you might even get paid in addition to getting the chicken manure) to speed the decomposition of wood chips, but I would be wary of this method in your situation; since your soil is all sand, it will drain extremely quickly, causing massive fertilizer runoff, effectively destroying your investment. A better solution might be to create compost piles using lots of wood chips along with other organic matter, and to add the fertilizer to those piles. Then, once the material is composted, spread and till. Compost piles containing a variety of materials are generally more successful than single-source compost.

ATTRA has many useful documents and links about composting:

http://attra.org/soils.html

As noted above, definitely do not add clay to sand.

Good luck!