Find the Perfect Tomato
15 Deer-Resistant Plants
10 Perennials Easily Grown from Seed
Soil Testing is Worth the Effort
Enchanting Japanese Maples
25 Robust Summer Bloomers
Free Download: Rose Pruning and Bed Prep
Variegated Plants Create Drama
How to Start a Vegetable Garden
Building a Compost Bin
Off With Their Heads: Deadheading Perennials
Make Your Own Hypertufa Container
The Only Shrubs You Need to Grow
All About Starting Seeds
Friendly Ways to Battle Garden Pests
Bold and Beautiful Zinnias
Garden Catalog Collector
Video: Make a Straw-Bale Garden
A gardener's checklist for early summer
Perfect Edges for Your Beds and Borders
Big Flowers from Bigleaf Hydrangeas
Lilacs: Time for a Fresh Look
Backyard Makeover Game
How to Grow Raspberries
Viburnums are Versatile Shrubs

TaraDillard

member

Recent comments

Re: Why Are You Working So Hard? Blow Up Your Rototiller

What is a new gardener to think of your headline? It's correct where you are and mostly incorrect where I am, metro Atlanta. Why? Builders scraped away top layers of soil for construction leaving behind acidic non-percolating brick-like orange clay without natural bacteria, fungi, insects, etc. Mother Nature did not intend the plants of this region to grow in it.

Sure, you can have pine, sweetgum, oak and wait for Mother Nature's cycle to renew, in a few decades.

The reality? Amend soil with a 2" layer granite grit or river sand tilled 8"-10" deep. Amend soil with organic material? Why? It depletes within 2 years and you're back where you started.

Garden & Be Well, XO Tara Dillard

posted: 10:59 am on September 15th