Congrats on becoming part of a community garden! (There is also a Community Garden forum here on Houzz.) Number 1 piece of advice: talk to your garden neighbors and ask them what they are doing and what they think you should do. They are the experts in that environment and you will make friends and build relationships.

So, you are gardening in containers with potting soil and not in the ground? There is not much value for using worm castings in containers since containers with potting soil are a synthetic environment - no worms, beetles, or extensive fungus and bacteria to break down the nutrients in the worm castings and provide them to the plants.

In the ground, on the other hand, worm castings are great. Dig them in to the top couple of inches of soil.

You can get your own worm castings in the ground by making your garden a worm heaven so they will come and poop in your soil. If you have access to fall leaves, shred some and put it down as mulch. If you have a Starbucks or other coffee place nearby, ask them for some bags of used coffee grounds and mix that into the leaves. The worms will set up shop and before long be all over your soil doing their good deeds.

Thank you, Richard! Appreciate the welcome, but I was a Garden Web member for many years and just found out that it is now a part of HOUZZ!! :) I havent used the Gardenweb in years, but used to years ago. The best garden resource on the web!!

The garden is not a container. The community has tilled and laid bags of Miracle Gro soil, but no one seems to know which variety bc this is a second home to many, including me. I initially thought i should fertilize and use the worm castings, but after much thought, i think i will just be using the castings. I plan to plan tomatoes, string beans, zucchini, jalopenos, herbs, cukes, lettuces, romaine and a few more. Really excited to start the planting!

Interesting you instructed me to just dig in a few inches into the soil. I was going to really work it into the soil and likely go down at least six inches, so i should just dig them in a few inches??

Assuming the soil is Miracle Gro garden soil, are there amendments in that variety?

I think MG was used because it was easy. We have a landscape company who handled this. They turned a field into the community garden, made individual gardens with wood sides to define each 9x9 bed. Doing what you suggested would have been more labor intensive and more expensive.

Not at all!! MG all purpose garden soil goes for around $8.50 per 2 cubic foot bag. A cubic yard of bulk garden soil goes for around $25-30. You would need 14 bags of the MG soil to get the same amount.......doing the math, that is $119 versus $25-30.

Yes using the MG was easy for the landscapers. But not at all more labor intensive and they have padded their pockes at the gardens' expense unneccesarily. Bulk soil will always be far less expensive than anything you get bagged!! And often of much better quality.

OK, this gives a clearer picture. So, as I understand it this is a new (first year) community garden that has just been created. Members are given 9x9 raised beds and a landscaper has added MG potting soil or garden soil (don't know which - probably the latter because it is less expensive and more suited to this application).

It also sounds like you would like to garden organically (using worm castings and other natural amendments that will break down in the soil), as opposed to using synthetic fertilizers.

If that is the case, then here is what I would suggest for prepping the soil in your first year.

1. I would start with a change of perspective: you are going to grow in the dirt on the property - not in the Miracle Grow. Consider the MG as an amendment, like compost, that they have provided. The MG will add organic matter to the soil and improve the texture. (The organic matter will eventually break down over time and release some nutrients - but not much.)

2. Your original plan is right on - you will want to dig this material in to the ground. I would go down about a foot and turn the potting soil into the dirt and mix them together. You are mixing them up, but the most important ingredient you are adding is air. Once you turn this soil over a couple of times mixing everything together, it will be higher than before because you have added much needed air for the roots to grow.

2.a From this point on, you will never set foot on this ground again because your weight will compact the soil and make it unfit habitat for roots and beetles and the other biological workers. Since you can't reach everything in an 9 x 9 garden from the outside, you will need to make a path through the middle. A 2 foot path will allow you to work comfortably and get tools and containers in and out. I have done paths as narrow as one foot, but once you have beans or tomatoes growing 8 feet tall and spreading out then that narrow path will disappear.

3. Your worm casings are a great idea. They are also exorbitantly expensive. While I won't dissuade you from using such a fine amendment, I would suggest at the top of your list should be amendments that will add nutrients, like one of the bagged combinations of manure and compost. These will break down over the summer and slowly add nutrition for the plants and greatly improve the biology of the soil since it invites in all the creatures that feed on that stuff.

4. You will also need a shot of more potent and faster acting nutrition - a good good Complete Organic Fertilizer. This is basically a combination of seed meals and lime that will supply an even balance of N-P-K in a slow release over several months. Typically, you apply it every spring to compensate for the nutrients that were used up in the previous growing season. You can make your own (see Steve Solomon's page for a recipe) - but for your small plot it will be far easier to just buy some. (I will list some products at the end of this post.) The sooner you can get this in the ground the better because it needs about six weeks of breaking down before the nutrients are supplied to the plants. Dig all your amendments in when you turn the soil with the MG potting soil. Do it a couple of times to get a good mix. And then you are ready to plant.

5 Mulch - I mentioned this in my first post. Always have 3 to 5 inches of mulch. Never leave bare soil to the elements. Why? Weeds. Weeds will spring up on any exposed soil. Unless your idea of a good time is weeding, keep the ground covered. It is easy enough to push the mulch away when you need to plant seeds or dig in seedlings. I gather shredded leaves in the fall for mulch and then supplement that with a bale of straw (not hay) in the summer. When you use something dry and brown like that it is easy to toss on some coffee grounds or grass clippings to help the stuff slowly decompose. (You are essentially making your own compost while you mulch!) Worms love mulch - especially leaves - and you can easily turn the top of your soil into a mini worm farm producing your own worm castings.

6. Finally - you only have to dig the soil once (as long as you never walk on it). Yes this is a lot of work to get started, but you will never have to till or dig out the garden again. You will just keep it mulched and use the Complete Organic Fertilizer once a year.

Some Complete Organic Fertilizers you can buy:

Territorial's Complete Fertilizer by Territorial Seed Company

Down To Earth All Purpose 4-6-2 Mix

BLOOM #11 Cascadia Gold by Black Lake Organic

What fertilization the site needs depends entirely on its own individual soil mineral situation - sample the soil and have it tested before fertilizing. Assuming you are in the US your nearest USDA Cooperative Extension Service branch office can help with this. And should be consulted for advice and direction in other vegetable gardening subject areas also.

Rather than assuming the neighbors have it all figured out.

Instead of a steady diet of fertilizer I would dig in an inch or two of mushroom compost or well composted (black) horse manure. You won't need to side dress during this season. I wouldn't add it where you plant the lettuce this year.

I wouldn't buy mushroom compost in bags, however I would suggest you go to a nursery center and ask if you can bag your own. Bring heavy "contractors" plastic bags. They will likely require you to fill and load the bags into your vehicle yourself. The bags will be much lighter as they won't be mostly sand and they won't add water. It's hard to say what you'd need, how many bags. A bag of peat is 3 cu ft, so 5 bags is about a half a yard. I'd say half a yard will be fine.

The second year I'd add maybe half again as much except I'd add more to the area where you had your lettuce this year. In a third year I wouldn't add anything and I wouldn't side dress with bags of fertilizer.

First, compost - of any kind - is not a fertilizer. It is a soil amendment. It does have a nutrient load but it is extremely low compared to a proper fertilizer and is slow to become available to the plants, For fast growing, single season veggie crops you will very likely need to provide some supplemental fertilization.

Mushroom compost also tends to have high levels of soluble salts and these can have a very negative effect on both seed germination and started seedling development. It's a great idea to add compost but avoid mushroom compost or any manures on edible crops. Instead, use a mixed ingredient yard/kitchen waste compost....preferrably your own :-)

Also very few nurseries carry bulk compost of any kind. That sort of product is typically found at bulk soil yards. And generally, mushroom compost can only be obtained in bulk from the mushroom farmers....otherwise it is almost always going to be a bagged product.

And while a soil test is always a good idea when starting to garden in a new space, it is not really critical in this case. The imported MG soil will be pretty much pH neutral and has been implanted with a slow release fert as well. But that might need to be supplemented during the course of the season. Most edible crops are heavy feeders and pull a lot of nutrients from the soil and the MG soil is intended to be a supplemental amendment only (not the primary planting soil) so there may not be enough nutes in the soil to keep everybody happy and productive. But any all-purpose fertilizer, organic or synthetic, will work to this end.