Here ya go Ann!

I get lots of questions on what to use to make the best soil mix for raised beds. Now, I'm sure there are a million good recipes out there, but I'll give you a some quick suggestions of what I use that works well for me.

Remember that brand "new" soil mixes are often not that fertile at the get go. They take a little time to start to break down and for the population of beneficial microbes to grow. Initially, plants in new soil may often look yellow or stunted. Feed the soil by adding things like dry molasses, dry seaweed or liquid bio-stimulants. You must make sure to mix in fertilizer with the soil and planting and provide supplemental fertilizer.

(Ann, specifically on the Letco bedding mix, I would not use that mix for veggie beds. They have a better bulk mix called Specialty Planting Mix (and now a Vegetable planting mix 2012). I've used that mix in about 5 of my veggie beds and it's working pretty well. It's still less than a year old, and so initial fertility was not high, but it's getting better.)

If you're buying bagged soil and making your own mix, here is what I often recommend. I'll use a 4' x 4' bed that is 12" high for the example. First you want to get your volume. Remember that 1 cubic yard equals 27 cubic feet. And to get your bed volume multiply the width, length and height in feet.

4 x4 x 1 = 16 cubic feet. That's how many cubic feet of soil your bed will need. If you're buying 2 cubic foot bags then the bed will take 8 bags, if you're buying 1 cubic foot bags, it will take about 16.

For this bed you could use (each of these are 1 cu. ft. bags)

• 6 bags of a high quality topsoil such as Soil Menders Enriched Topsoil(NOT builders trash topsoil)
• 6 bags high quality compost (I like Vital Earth)
• 3 bags of Humus, such as Soil Menders Plant and Soil Food
• 1 bag of Composted cow manure

Then you're going to need to amend that mixture with your granular vegetable fertilizer and you can also add things like dry molasses, dry seaweed, greensand and lava sand. Expanded shale can be added to mixes for beds that need improved drainage. If you plan on growing root crops such as carrots in the bed, skip the expanded shale or any other chunky product. 

If you're buying a bulk soil, look for one that has a good mix of compost, topsoil (quality), some finely shredded landscapers mix (not chunky), humus and amendments like greensand.

This is super quick...and I'm headed out of town, but I hope this helps!

Here is another question I received:

"Everything I plant seems to takeway longer to grow than any harvest times I read about. seed packets or gardenarticles.  I planted Brussels sprouts and cabbages about the beginning of September and although theplants are healthy they are just now starting to make heads on the cabbages andno sign of anything with the sprouts. Same thing with my broccoli andcarrots, peppers and peas.  Summer and fall plantings alike.  Even myradishes take up to 60 days to get to a decent size. (I won't discuss tomatoes. My tomato harvest sucked.) I even have this issue with flowers.  Iplanted marigold seeds in the spring and while they germinate and get a coupleof inches tall they actually started growing gangbusters in September!  Theyare blooming now.

I plant according to the NHGplanting dates.  You posted about an abundance of zucchinis and mine werejust starting to bloom. My mom is putting up turnip greens and mine are about 4inches tall. Things seem to eventually get there, but what's making things growso slow?

Some of the things I planted last fall grew to be about 4inches or so and then just stalled out for the rest of the winter.  I leftthem alone and in the spring they started growing again to give me an earlyspring harvest.  But that can throw off my spring planting plans.  Thatwas ok because last spring I was putting in new beds and I just shifted around. This year it won't work.  If I'm still waiting for my fall garden toharvest in the spring, I won't have space to plant my summer plan.  Orwill have to plant later. 

Iam new to gardening.  I moved to Dallas in the fall of 2007 from Houston.I attended one of your new gardeners seminars at NHG. I have raised beds infull sun with a mix of garden soil, composts, manures and lava sand.  Ifertilize with seaweed/fish emulsion in a foliar spray.  Any suggestions?"

Answers: There are a number of factors at play here. First is obviously timing. There are different times for starting seeds of crops and transplants outdoors. Make sure you're starting seed indoors in January/February for Spring crops that need to be transplanted in March...same goes for fall crops. It sounds like you're trying to follow properl seeding and planting dates, but I'd ask you to perhaps give some specifics about say, when exactly you seeded your zucchini, or your turnips. My turnip greens are also ready now as well. I seeded them outdoors in September.

Next, the most important factors are going to be temperature, rainfall/watering and your soil quality. Temperature drives development (fruit), Light drives green growth. So if temperatures are say unseasonably cool, or warm, that will effect development of your plants and change the length of time to ripening. Your marigolds for example probably needed to be started indoors in Jan/Feb to be ready for Spring planting. They like our cooler spring and fall weather here, but get a bit stunted once the summer heat kicks in. That's why they're doing great now. I recommend planting transplants of marigolds in March/April and then again in August and early September.

Your plants sound stunted and that is usually due to water management and soil fertility. Realize that "new" soil, even if it's a mix of really good composts, etc. can take a little while to become bioactive. Soil microbes that assist in the breakdown of nutrients take time to multiply. New soil is always less fertile that a mix that's been in the garden a year or so. So when you plant veggies into a bed with new soil, you'll often see stunted or yellowing plants. Amend the soil with things that are food for microbes (molasses, fish emulsion) and make sure you're fertilizing the plants. The liquid seaweed is a good instant feed, but there is no lasting effect. You'll need to put down a granular veggie food in the beds as well as supplementing with a liquid feed. Once your soil is really good, you won't have to fertilize as much. It can take a new soil mix a year or more to get really active in my experience.

We had a very hot dry summer, followed by a very wet October. That really got a lot of people's plants off schedule. It's key, during August and September, to really water those fall crops enough to get them off to a good start. They are cool season plants, but we put them out in the garden at a time here when it is still really hot and dry. This can stunt growth and development causing either a failed crop or delayed production. 

Does this help?

Here is a question I received today from Carrie:

"I am growing Swiss Chard, Spinach, and Bibb lettuce this fall.  I knowit's probably too late to be asking you this question, but what, ifanything, do I need to do this fall/winter to protect them?  I have itin my mind that the chard & spinach are pretty hardy and can take afrost(?) but I doubt the same can be said for the bibb.  Everythinglooks fine so far, even after the "snow" we got this morning."

I almost never cover my chard, spinach or lettuce. They can all take temperatures in the low 20's without protection. About 22 F degrees or so. In fact, you can even germinate spinach seeds down in the low 20's. If we drop into the teens you can cover them with a sheet of frost cloth and that should be enough. Just make sure plants are watered before a freeze and you're good to go. In our area we will normally get say two or three freezes in the teens, so just have some frost cloth on hand. Snow and ice can actually act as an insulator when it covers the plant. It's the dry hard freezes that actually do more damage. That help Carrie?

Since I now can't eat much of what is in my garden, I've been forced to start giving it away...bags and bags of it! Tomatoes, peppers, beans you name it. I had quite the bumper crop of fall tomatoes this year too...such a shame! I still have a good mix of really ripe tomatoes on the vine plus lots of green ones. Some really big 'Celebrity' tomatoes that would have made the most perfect fried green tomatoes...Ah well...Happy Thanksgiving! (at least I can still eat French fries! lol)

The Pox must be tapering off at this point because the gals have started laying again. I think I can also now officially say that all 5 are laying. I do believe that Phyllis, the Polish, has just started laying her first eggs...she is obviously a very late bloomer. I've tried to identify which chicken is laying which eggs, well, because I think that's fun! Each bird will lay a specific color egg, and always lay eggs close to that color. The different breeds obviously also have differences between size and color. Here is my best guess at this point:

From left to right, Honkers, Eunice, Pecker, Phyllis and Einstein. Now, I do think the pox is still effecting some of their egg sizes. Einstein's eggs were bigger pre-pox and molting, so I expect they will go back up in size a bit. Same thing with Eunice (the sage green egg). I expect hers to go back up in size a bit too. You can see the difference between Phyllis's (Polish) eggs, which are more elongated and a lovely pinkish color and Einstein's (Houdan) which are pure white and more round.

I must say, Honkers is laying some honkin' big eggs right now! On the left is a large organic free-range egg from Whole Foods. On the right, is one of my eggs. My yolks are much more orange than the WF eggs as well. I must say that I think I'm kinda kicking WF's behind!

It was a beautiful Sunday and the bees were out makin' hay while the sun was shining. I have a lavender passion vine that is still blooming like crazy right now and the bees are much appreciative. I try to have plants blooming in my garden as close to year-round as I can so the bees have something to feed on. It comes in handy when you need them around to pollinate your veggies or fruit trees. Just thought you guys might enjoy this photo.

I've been holding back posting on this for about a week because, well, let's just say I'm suffering from PTTSD. That would be Post Tomato Traumatic Stress Disorder. I'm in a bit of shock. I had a full panel of food sensitivity tests done, thinking that I was having a problem digesting gluten and wheat. But little did I know the cruel joke fate would play on me...had I, I don't think I would have gotten tested! Anyway...as it turns out, the foods I reacted the most to (we call them the "red" foods), and thus must remove from my diet, are

• TOMATOES, garlic, oregano, apples, capsaicin (so nohot peppers), cucumbers, lentils, watermelon, salicylic acid, carob and phenylethylamine (diet sodas I think).

Now, I've been a vegetarian for 20 years...so most of the things on that list right there are pretty important components of my daily diet. I eat healthy and I grow and eat lots of veggies. Anyone who knows me will immediately wonder how on earth I'm going to get along without tomatoes or my hot peppers. My garden is bursting with them! I just planted all that beautiful garlic too...no more cucumber sandwiches...sniff, sniff. Ok, so maybe you're thinking, well, this isn't all that bad, you'll make it work. BUT THERE'S MORE.

Apparently I also have a bunch of other foods I'm highly sensitive too, although not as sensitive as to the red foods. These are the "yellow" foods. I'm supposed to keep these to a minimum and not combine any two together at any time.

• Baker's Yeast (there goes bread), beets, black pepper, broccoli, cabbage, caffeine, cauliflower, cayenne pepper, cherry, cinnamon, coconut, codfish, corn, grapes, mango, millet, oranges, peanuts, pistachio, plums, pork, rye, solanine, soybean (no more tofu) string beans, sweet potatoes and yellow squash.

Um, yeah, just kill me now. I'm now wishing it was the gluten and wheat I was allergic too! So great, I'm not allergic to gluten, I can eat bread, yay! Wait, no, it all has yeast in it...No corn...no soy...pretty much everything at the grocery store has yeast, corn or soy in it in some form. Broccoli, cauliflower??? I have acres of broccoli in the garden right now...lol. American wine is off my list now too because apparently they all contain corn of some kind? So, awesome, I guess I'll just have to drink nicer more expensive European wines right? NO...because I'm sensitive to GRAPES! Have you ever tried to find something already made that doesn't have black pepper or garlic in it???? 

Oh my gosh, my head is spinning...I need a drink...one not made with corn, or yeast, or grapes...LOL

A lovely bouquet of roses for you this morning...just plucked from the garden. The scent is divine. 'Abraham Darby', 'Tamora' and 'Perle d' Or'.