Melissia,

FINDING TOPSOIL:

Because of the high cost of transportation, if you are needing a lot (more than you could haul in the bed of a pick-up truck, for example), your best sources will be your closest source. (And I don't know of any topsoil suppliers in your county, but a local nursery might be able to tell you where to find one.)

The year before we built our house here, we built two raised beds in which I could raise veggies since we spent our weekends here clearing the land.

We bought a dumptruck load of "sandy loam" from a supplier based in Ardmore, having deliberately avoided Love County suppliers because we already knew that the so-called topsoil they would deliver would be nothing but sand and grassburr seed. When we called around, we specified we were looking for a good sandy loam with organic material and did not want pure southern Oklahoma sand. We were assured that they would bring good sandy loam suitable for a vegetable garden. To put it bluntly, they lied. They brought us exactly what we could have purchased locally (and, therefore, not had to pay higher delivery costs)--pure sand that was full of weed seed. I was not happy, but accepted delivery of the load because I realized every other "topsoil" supplier in southern Oklahoma probably had the same junk.

I put some of the soil in the two raised beds we'd built and then I added tons and tons of compost and other organic materials, including 3-year old rotted hay. I probably ended up with a blend that was about 65 to 75 percent sand and 25 to 35 percent organic material. That ended up being a good mix and it got better every year as I added more and more organic material.

I'll probably never buy topsoil again unless I can visit the place I purchase it from and look at it before I buy it. I guess I am spoiled, because we had a place in Fort Worth from whom we purchased really, really good sandy loam full of organic material when we needed it there.

BERMUDA GRASS AND RAISED BEDS: I am not sure how you intend to build your raised beds, but just wanted to say that the same bermuda grass that plagues you in other parts of your landscape will invade and take over your raised beds within only weeks of them being built and filled with soil if you are not incredibly careful.

If you build an above-grade bed in an area that has bermuda grass, you must put down a barrier between the bed and the bermuda and even that is no guarantee. I use thick cardboard and extend it a foot beyond the wood edging used to build the bed. I then cover that cardboard with mulch on the outside of the bed. You'll have to keep the bermuda grass from rooting in the mulch and climbing into the raised bed. And, unless you take out all the bermuda grass on your property (a goal I am working my way towards although it probably will take me another 10-20 years to achieve it), you will ALWAYS have a fight on your hands to keep the bermuda out of your beds.

What has worked best for me in the veggie garden (and some years I still have bermuda grass creep in) is to put down heavy black plastic 4' wide along the outside of the garden fence, and then pile up mulch on top of that plastic. By keeping the bermuda grass 4' away from the garden fence, I have mostly been able to keep it out of the veggie garden. If I notice the grass creeping into the mulch, I pull it up or dig it out before it reaches the veggie garden. If I am not careful, though, it creeps through the mulch and makes its way back into the garden.

One problem with hauling in topsoil or even a topsoil/compost mix if you can find one is that it may very well have bermuda grass seed in it, so you can end up with bermuda grass in the beds anyway.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, bermuda grass is evil.

Dawn

Thanks Dawn --

Someone told me that Lebanon had good soil, if I could find some from there -- have you heard that?

I actually have really good soil where I am -- I just could not keep up with the bermuda . . .

My husband is going to build my raised beds from landscape timbers. I am definitly putting down black plastic -- commercial grade -- I have a friend in TX ordering that for me -- my mom used it the last 2 years and it is still holding up really well for her.

I guess I'll start calling some of the nursuries around and see what I come up with.

Thanks

Melissia,

You are welcome and I don't know of anyone mining soil in Lebanon. You might be able to find out if somebody is doing so by calling your county's agricultural extension agent. Or, you might try calling the Noble Foundation in Ardmore and see if they can recommend a good, local source for quality topsoil.

The only other idea I have at this point is Good Earth Soil and Materials in Sherman. It seems like I've seen print ads for them in either the Sherman or Gainesville newspaper. I know they sell mostly stone for landscaping projects, but, since the have the word "Earth" in their name, perhaps they sell topsoil or a topsoil/compost or topsoil/humus blend.

Good luck,

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Good Earth Soil and Materials

Melissa, I have the same problem whenever we build a new raised bed.

This last one just finished its third growing season and I have been pleased with the results. I put down a layer of landscape cloth and couple of layers of cardboard on top of that.

The first year, I put everything I could lay my hands on into that raised bed. I scouted around and got everyone's bags of leaves, I put in everything that there was in both sides of the compost bin, which I keep working all the time with pulled weeds, kitchen scraps, leaves and grass clippings. Every time DH cut the grass that summer, he dumped the clippings into the bed. That first summer I didn't grow anything in the bed *on purpose*. But some seeds germinated from the compost. There was hardly any actual soil in the bed to speak of, but I got five nice cantaloupe off some volunteer vines, and a few new potatoes from potato plants that I threw in there after their first yield in tubs. Towards the end of the summer I threw some black-eyed peas into the bed and kept them watered. They came up and I got several pickings off them before the first frost. I was surprised so many things would grow in just straight compost. The following spring, we tilled and the bed was good to go.

As Dawn said, the Bermuda will not stay out of your raised beds. You will have to be vigilant and watch the corners and edges. That said, I've had very good results mulching with grass clippings. I lay newspaper down first, then the grass clippings on top. Fresh grass clippings "cook" a little when first applied, so sometimes I will pile them in a heap somewhere and let them get past that stage first. It depends on what I'm growing. The tomatoes don't seem to mind fresh grass clippings, as long as I don't pile it too high right around where the plant is coming out of the ground.

One thing that is labor intensive to grow where there is Bermuda anywhere around, is strawberries. Their trailing habit is so similar to that of the Bermuda grass that you find yourself accidentally pulling strawberry plants when you thought you had a Bermuda root. Once Bermuda gets into the strawberry bed, that's the end. The best you can do is to build a new raised bed, going the whole nine yards with barriers, and transplant the strawberry plants into it. Then plant something in the old bed that you can mulch. As for myself, I just gave up trying to grow strawberries at all.

I bought a load of "topsoil" once. It was awful. It introduced prairie weeds into my yard that I never completely got rid of. It contained sand and lumps of clay and rocks. I will never do that again. I have bought bags of topsoil and it was not much better.

Someone once mentioned scouting around where there is new construction. Talk to the contractor about whether you could have the soil that they dig out in order to pour the footings for the foundation. That's probably going to be just as good or better than anything you can buy. You can also contact your local tree-cutting service. The fellow that cut a tree down for me said he always has big piles of ground-up wood on the property where he keeps his equipment and told me I could go and get as much as I want. One caveat - decomposing wood retards seed germination, so if you're going to plant seeds directly into the soil, you may not want to go that route. --Ilene

Thanks. I contacted noble foundation and they don't sale topsoil and the only thing they recomended was to look in the phone book . . .

I will try to look for construction and call some local nursuries and see what they do.

Thanks again for all the info.

I think I read somewhere (I need to look it up again) that you can basically scalp the grass off. I could then put down a barrier to help keep the burmuda out -- is this possible? What's your thought on doing this instead of trying to find topsoil?

Well, have I ever mentioned that Bermuda grass is evil?????? LOL

Sorry, I lost control and can't help myself.

Melissia, you could pour concrete a foot deep over bermuda grass and it will survive and come creeping up through the cracks that eventually develop in the concrete.

With clumping grasses like rye and fescue, you can scalp them off and mostly destroy them. With a creeping grass like bermuda, though, you cannot. Or, at least, you cannot easily do it. The reason is that bermuda has stolons, or runners, that run through the soil several inches underground and they will regenerate and grow like mad even if you scrape off every bit of grass on the surface of the soil.

With bermuda, there are only a couple of sure-fire ways to remove it and they can be costly, and hard to do once you have a house/garage/driveway/landscape in place.

First, BEFORE building a home and putting in a landscape, patio, fence, etc., hire someone with a bulldozer to remove the top 6" to 8" of soil and take all the bermuda grass out along with it. THEN, hire someone to bring in good topsoil......but, even then, you might have bermuda grass seed in that topsoil. THEN, put in all your hardscaping and landscaping and VIGOROUSLY ATTACK every blade of bermuda that sprouts with Round-up repeatedly.

Or, if you already have established buildings, sidewalks, patios, trees, etc., rent a sodcutter (or hire a landscaping company to do it for you) and have them (or you) cut and remove the bermuda sod. You or they have to go deep enough to get all the stolons though. I think in general 3" to 4" would do it. Even then, though, you have to vigorously attack any regrowth as soon as it appears. And, unless you have pretty deep sandy loam, you have to have new topsoil hauled in to level the yard and replace what was taken out with the bermuda grass. It can be costly and time-consuming, but so is removing bermuda grass bit by bit by bit for the next 40 years. And then you have to put in something to take the place of the bermuda. Here in southern OK, my top choice for turf grass would be St. Augustine. I had it in Fort Worth and loved it and healthy St. Augustine is one of the few turfgrasses that can outcompete bermuda grass.

Remember, though, that when you bring in new topsoil to replace what was taken out with the sodcutter, that soil will undoubtedly have dormant bermuda grass seed in it. I don't know of any topsoil suppliers who will guarantee soil that is free of any weed or grass seed.

The only answer to bermuda grass is to shade it out, dig it out, bury it under layers of plastic and cardboard with stuff piled on top, or kill it with Round-Up, and you'll have to keep after the regrowth perpetually. If you till up soil and remove bermuda grass, all you have to do is leave a 1/4" piece of stolon every 3 or 4' and the whole area will regrow within 2-4 months.

My brother rototilled the soil, removed all the bermuda grass, roots and stolons he could find, laid down heavy black plastic, cut holes in the plastic and planted right through the holes. He then covered it all with white decorative rock. Five years later, he removed the black plastic and guess what was underneath it.....tons and tons of white, thick bermuda grass stolons creeping everywhere....underground and on the soil surface underneath that black plastic.....just waiting for some sunlight and a chance to grow.

If you have bermuda grass, the only way to really get rid of it is to move to a state where it won't grow......maybe Alaska?

Dawn

Yeah, Dawn. Bermuda IS evil!

I get large cardboard boxes from my local furniture store. They get recliners in boxes that are just the right size, when collapsed, to fit between my raised beds. So that means I have heavy cardboard, 4 layers thick, on top of landscape fabric. The grass travels under the 4' width of cardboard and comes up in my raised beds anywhere that is not mulched!

I have a question about St. Augustine turf. If it holds it's own against Bermuda does that mean it's invasive like Bermuda is? Will it turn up in raised beds?

Ilene,

I would not exactly use the word invasive with regards to St. Augustine. I guess the most accurate word would be either "aggressive" or "sturdy". St. Augustine does very, very well if it is grown in sandy loam or clayey-loam/compost-improved clay like I had in Fort Worth. It doesn't do quite as well in sand with low humus/organic content. It likes water but does not need a whole lot more water than bermuda (surprisingly).

In Fort Worth, when we bought our house there early in 1984, we had a lush, thick St. Augustine ('Raleigh', I think) lawn, but the houses on both sides of us had common Bermuda. I was afraid their bermuda would invade our St. Augustine, but our St. Augustine invaded their bermuda. (They didn't care because the St. Augustine was prettier!)

I never had much trouble with the St. Augustine invading our mixed beds of shrubs/groundcovers/annual flowers and rose bushes. When a stolon would creep into a bed, it was very easy to yank out. The best way I ever heard someone describe it was to say "You have to dig out bermuda, but you can easily pull out St. Augustine." I did find that to be true.

St. Augustine is not, unfortunately, as cold hardy as I'd like, and that is one reason I've been hesitant to plant it here. Every year it seems like we have a day or two or three where the overnight low plunges down into the single digits, sometimes as low as 1 degree or 3 or 5 or whatever. St. Augustine 'Palmetto' can survive those temps IF the grass is in good shape and is well-watered and healthy when the temperature plunges, although sometimes minor freeze damage can occur.

Our next-door neighbor here in Love County had St, Augustine (probably 'Raleigh' he told me) grass when we bought our place, but it gradually was shaded out by their beautiful, very tall and mature oak trees. However, St. Augustine can thrive in more shade than bermuda. (Recently, they have had some of those trees removed so it is possible they could have St. Augustine grass again because I think they still have too much shade for bermuda.)

Even though my experience with St. Augustine/Bermuda grasses in Fort Worth showed me that St. Augustine can outcompete bermuda, I wasn't sure if you could convert a bermuda grass lawn to St. Augustine easily. Since our back yard was bermuda grass in Fort Worth, I dug up plugs from the front lawn and inserted those St. Augustine plugs into the back yard. In less than one growing season, those randomly spaced plugs had filled in, spread, and were crowding out the bermuda. I was thrilled.

So, given the choice, I'd choose St. Augustine over bermuda every time, except in areas, like a dog run, that have heavy foot traffic. St. Augustine doesn't hold up very well to heavy foot traffic.

Ever since we moved here, I've toyed with the idea of replacing my bermuda grass with St. Augustine, and next spring I might just do it in the approx. 60' by 60' area between the house and the detached garage/barn. It is an area that has had poor drainage, but I've corrected a lot of that with the addition of compost and humus added to the soil surface over time (guess the earthworms and other critters have done the rest by carrying humus and compost down lower into the soil).

When we moved here in Feb. 1999, I thought I'd have the landscape "done" and "under control" within the first decade, even though I was starting out basically with a fallow cow pasture full of mixed bermuda, forbs and native grasses. Unfortunately, I underestimated both how long it would take to improve the heavy, thick red clay and also the effects of recurring drought every couple of years. Maybe by the time we've been here 15 or 20 years, I'll finally have the landscape I want. To get it, though, all the bermuda has to go.

Dawn