Last fall when Hurricane Sandy hit many trees around my home met their demise. I noticed all the extra sunlight gained by the tree removal and one spot where a Garden would fit nicely. I thought about this spot last year but there wasn’t enough sunlight to support a full sun garden due to the large white pines that grew near that location. It is a different story this year and time to get out the shovel.

What I have here is sandy loam Soil that hasn’t been worked in 50 years. It was very hard to dig due to a lot of tree roots but the soil appears to be very deep at this location. I worked it to a down to 8 inches.

In my opinion, there isn’t anything better than sandy soil. Many will disagree but I will take the drainage over constant need to water anytime. We once owned a farm with similar soil and it’s great for early crops such as tomatoes and melons. However, at this point I still haven’t made a decision on what to plant here.
 

The soil pH in these parts runs about 5 and will need some heavy duty adjustment to get any fertilizer to work correctly. I have some Calcium Hydroxide or “quick lime” that I will use to adjust the pH. A word of caution here, calcium hydroxide is not for home use and can drastically change the pH if used in excess. Quick lime is used in leaf recycling to adjust pH and also in making brick mortar. Quick lime is about 3 times more powerful than regular garden lime and works instantly. It also cost 20 times more.
 

I have the garden limed and waiting for rain.