raised-bed My raised bed

Drachor

Drachor

I created 3 huge raise beds this year. Needed 6 yards of dirt. Found a local place that dumped 6 yards of garden soil pretty cheap.
3 months after planting, every single plant is turning completely yellow and dying, even a couple year old plants I added in there to make space on the patio.
 
I bought a soil testing kit, which turn out very old and pills were nasty, but all the tests looked good (don't really trust the results)
Place I bought the soil from said they use this for their sod. Any chance they added weed killer or something?
 
My next step is sending a soil sample to get tested, but it will not show chemicals like weed killer. Any other suggestions?
 
What you ordered, was rightly called "dirt". The difference between "dirt" and "soil", is that dirt is dead and lifeless. If you used it fresh, there was no ecosystem, nothing to support healthy plant life. 
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So the question becomes - what did you do to condition it?  Compost?  Manures?  Anything?
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What kind of "soil testing kit"?  Was it just pH?
 
Solid7 hit the nail on the head. So to speak. I personally would top dress a good 4-6" of good compost. And mulch over another 4". I would do this as soon as possible that way it can sit until You're ready to plant out. I see that you're from Orlando Florida and understand that this will not give you a lot of time. You may want to push your outside planting dates to around the first week of March that way the compost will have time to attract the life needed to change your dirt into living soil.
 
How tall are your raised beds? Mine are 2ft so I fill the bottom 12" with wood, branches, twigs, leaves and other organic garden waste. Then I fill the rest with a mix of peat moss, compost, manure and sand (the manure and sand is the black cow stuff). I've found that worms and fungus establish quickly in the beds and after a year it'll drop about 4" to 6" so I back fill with more compost.
 
I would throw some worms in there and see if they survive and multiply.
 
peppersproutfarm said:
Solid7 hit the nail on the head. So to speak. I personally would top dress a good 4-6" of good compost. And mulch over another 4". I would do this as soon as possible that way it can sit until You're ready to plant out. I see that you're from Orlando Florida and understand that this will not give you a lot of time. You may want to push your outside planting dates to around the first week of March that way the compost will have time to attract the life needed to change your dirt into living soil.
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Here in Florida, we have pretty much non-stop microbial activity, so it's alright.  Although, I have to be honest...  I'm a big believer in conditioning soil, and letting it lie fallow for a whole season before using it.  Is that necessary?  Maybe not.  Does it produce better results?  Well...  yeah, in every single case for me, it has.
 
For this region, even if one just uses straight fertilizer, probably just the thick top dress of green waste is going to be sufficient for the first year.  Certainly not optimal, but far better than doing nothing.  I have patches of sandy ground that I've conditioned this way, and they always show improvement first season.  
 
Also, I'd be going to Starbucks, and asking for coffee grounds.  Siv said one of the magic words, which is "fungus".  Great way to establish mycelium, is with spent coffee grounds.  And it's free.
 
Alright, that's a good start.
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But the question about your "testing kit" remains. And are your raised beds open bottom, or closed?
 
Wow - some real sage advice in the above posts - way to go fellas!
 
solid7 said:
Alright, that's a good start.
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But the question about your "testing kit" remains. And are your raised beds open bottom, or closed?
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Open. I think the beds are 2 feet tall and just sitting grass, but placed weed barrier down before the dirt.
 
solid7 said:
Do you have any pictures of what your plants look like?
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And the testing kit...  The testing kit.
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I will try to post some pictures tomorrow. The testing kit I threw away as the pills in some of the packet looked like they were eating the capsules and growing stuff. Pills were so bad they fell apart trying to pick them up.
Heres the link to the kit on Google: https://www.google.com/shopping/product/1?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=soil+test&prds=epd:1451368672487686979,eto:1451368672487686979_0,pid:1451368672487686979,prmr:1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjq0uiK44XuAhWlnOAKHTNiDKoQ9pwGCAU
 
I'm gonna be in Winter Spring later this week.  If all else fails, and you want to me to have a look, I'd be happy to see if I can help you out.
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I'm not familiar with that test kit at all, but for soil testing, I'd definitely recommend taking a sample to the University of Florida agricultural extension office.  There's one out on Conway Road.
 
Here's a couple of pictures of the peppers in my raised beds. All 30 of them look like this, well except two, which completely died and withered
pep1.jpg
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pep2.jpg
 
You mentioned "mulch" in the mix... 
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Looks like a lot of wood in there.  Your plants also look like they've been subjected to a vampiric substrate.  I am wondering right now if your mix has too high of a wood content, and is locking up nitrogen. 
 
I'm sending off a sample to University of Florida this week.
 
Wood locking up nitrogen. Solution is just to fertilize with heavy nitrogen ratio?
And even if that does improve the plants, would it be a continuous issue to were I would have to fertilize more than normal for the foreseeable future?
 
Oh how I miss dumping a bag of miracle grow in a 5 gallon container
 
Drachor said:
Wood locking up nitrogen. Solution is just to fertilize with heavy nitrogen ratio?
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Not only no, but hell no.

Wood will utilize nitrogen to break down cellulose, but after that, it goes right back into the soil, where it will be sequestered (if your soil is conditioned properly). Now, nitrogen is super mobile, so you could flush it. But you'll never be able to get the dosage balanced.  It's just a problem waiting to occur. 

 
Drachor said:
Oh how I miss dumping a bag of miracle grow in a 5 gallon container
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I would strongly advise that you go back to that method, for the time being.  You could set your containers right on top of the raised bed.  Let it be fallow for a season or two.  It will work itself out.

I hate to be Captain Hindsight here...  But it might be a good idea to seek some advice before soil building in the future.  This one is... not good.
 
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