Hello All,

I would REALLY appreciate you looking this over and I hope to glean some ideas out of the wisdom of your growing years.

We are a SMAL,L family-owned, micro-mini farm and have decided to expand out and sell our veggies this year at a local start up farmers market. That is beginning June 25.

We have always had great success in the past of growing veggies in horse compost we have brought in from a local stable. (It consists of horse poo, sand and wood shavings (most likely a soft wood variety).)

It's been aged, on average at least two years. It is not completely broken down.

compost sample

But it has broken down tremendously and has a nice smell of earth to it.

We have grown in this same stuff in the last two years with good success. Especially tomatoes and squash, melons, cantaloupe and leeks. We brought in about 100 yards worth this year for our two veggie areas.

In the one veggie area (the most pertinent to my questions) we placed about 15 yards over the existing dirt/compost from previous years.

In the past we had brought in horse poo, dairy compost, dirt, sand and peat moss to grow in wooden raised beds I had built. But since we were ramping up to a small market garden, decided to get rid of the permanent wooden raised beads and just grow directly into the beds I would create by rototilling and then raking out the walking paths.

Last years Beds

and the lettuce were able to direct seed and grow in them from last year, with some of the same horse poo in the bed as this year (although possible not quite as much)

When we purchased this place, 6 years ago, it had been abandoned for 2 years and the "fields" were full of weeds and the ground EVERYWHERE was impacted clay. So rather than fight with that, I decided to just keep bringing in farm animal poo and laying it on top with decent success.

We have always had VERY good success with lettuce greens in this "soil". Normally from transplants to, the last couple of years, direct seed.4

This year I have direct seeded some beds to have lettuce greens, carrot, radish, turnips and peas for that first farmers market.

I direct seeded the lettuce on May 10th. We are watering currently with a portable oscillating overhead sprinkler.

The lettuce has finally germinated but has only shown the first two leaves and just seems to be sitting there in limbo.

Lettuce seeds coming up from 5/10 seeding. Haven’t looked like this since Sunday.

We have since planted the same lettuce seeds in trays in the greenhouse as an experiment (and to get SOMETHING growing) and they have already past the field lettuce in growth in just 10 days. (Yet, the thought of transplanting 1000s of lettuce greens plants into the ground seems rather daunting.)

I am now currently going through all the beds with my new HUGE broad fork and trying to break up and bring to the surface the hardpan.

But the broad fork is only 12" deep and what with the 4-6" we placed over the top this spring and the previous years compost mixtures, plus the hardpan being SOOOOOO freaking HARD it's rather difficult to bring up much of the dirt below. And when I do it comes up in hardened clumps that my little Honda tiller has a tough time breaking apart.

I rented a LARGE walk behind tractor with the tiller early in the season when we first had laid the new horse poo, but it too seemed to hit the hardpan and then just scrape across it. I have not rented it since taking the broad fork to some beds. (But certainly not opposed to that either.)

So now with the farmers market rapidly approaching us I find myself in a conundrum of not wanting to continue to plant seeds into the medium for worry of the same results, but also ALL of our fields now have 4-6" of this and so what to do about it in order to get us to be able to grow this season.

I have thought of drastic ideas: as digging the horse poo out and pile it off to the side, bringing in dirt and some better compost.

This would certainly take some back breaking work, time and money to get it all done in a quick manner, but might be worth it on a test matter to see.

Do I bring in 100 yards of clean fill dirt (with it's weed seeds and clay in it) and spread it over the entire 2 growing areas and till it all in?

Or rent a small back hoe (excavator); go in and dig down and break up that clay and bring more of it to the surface and then till all that in with the horse poo? (Could be an expensive rent. But may quickly open things up.)

• But do I mix in the current horse poo stuff, or go get some compost to mix in instead?

Or a smaller scale combination of those choices in the areas that I want to direct seed greens and root crops this year?

What other choices do I have?

I have not had the new stuff tested this year, but had the stuff I got from him last year tested and these are the results we got back:

Any thoughts or ideas you have would be greatly appreciated in order to get us growing this season.

Thank you again for looking this over giving me feedback.

Rick