Gavin in Olivenhein II
Good evening, Growers!
The saga of quite possibly the most elaborate and biggest mound preparation ever attempted on the West Coast continues!
We took delivery of our weed-free dirt today (including manure and wild mushrooms). We used a delivery service because we needed 5 cubic yards to fill our hole and don't have a big truck.
Now we have to mix our dirt. Do you have any good suggestions on obtaining the 60/40 mix ratio, or should we just mix shovel by shovel and estimate?
Thank you,
Gavin"
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Hi Gavin!
Thanks for the great pictures! Nice!
Regarding the 60/40 mixture, I guess I'm pretty old school in this regard. 6 shovelfuls of the topsoil and 4 shovelfuls of your existing soil in a wheelbarrow, combined/mixed well, and then dumped into your hole/trench will do it. If you have access to the tractor from before, it would be the same, only using the bucket on the tractor, instead of a shovel, and the trench itself, instead of the wheelbarrow...
You'll probably want to use the wheelbarrow method for the tops of the mounds to make sure that there's a nice mixture of topsoil/existing soil where you'll be transplanting your seedlings anyway.
I think you may get the West Coast Award for The 2010 Most Effort Expended in Mound Preparation! You're definitely in the running.
The very best of luck to you!
Stuart
