Garden Soil

How Is The Soil At Your House? Awful! Who Cares - Make Your Own
The native dirt in your yard is 55% rock, 35% silt, 10 % sand, & no organic matter. It’s made of eroded debris from the limestone mountains to the west. It’s got a high ph, it's loaded with salts and it's completely devoid of organic material and microbes. It will not grow a garden no matter how much you wish it would.

This is how ideal soil is made.

Custom Making Your Own Garden Soil

"If you're garden budget is $100.00, spend $90.00 of it on your soil"Don Fabbi - Las Vegas Master Gardener.

You have three options here to get a usable garden soil.

Work on Your Native Soil. I don't recommend this unless your planning on spending huge amounts of time bringing in amendments and have machines capable of turning the heavy dirt, plus separating and hauling off the rocks. Your results will be poor and your back will be shot.

Bring In A Sand Based Soil. This will be better than working your awful native dirt, but will still be a fair amount of hard work. An inexpensive source for your base material is Vista Landscape Supply 565-6611 Their garden blend is 1/3 natural sand, 1/3 washed sand and 1/3 compost. It’s $25 per ton and delivery is a flat fee of $50.You will need to amend this product with the soil nutrients: bone meal, blood meal, sulfur and compost. Follow the package instructions on the first three items. For the compost you will need to mix in a 6" layer into your new soil. It's important that this compost be a true composted product and not a young wood product like sawdust or wood mulch. Those wood products will steal nitrogen and other nutrients from the soil as they decompose and break down. A composted product has already transformed from what it was into a material called humus (compost).Once you have mixed in your ingredients, the soil should 'mellow' for a few weeks before planting and adding worms.

Bring In Tomato Lady Garden Compost Soil. I saved the best for last. If you want a fantastic garden you need to start with fantastic soil. It's always the difference between success and failure in Las Vegas gardens. The best dirt available in this valley comes from Gro-Well (formerly Western Organics) 639-0370‎ and it's called tomato lady soil. The recipe was created by the famous local gardener Leslie Doyle, and it's 95% aged compost, 1% sand, and the remainder is kelp meal, humic acid, ammonium phosphate, potassium sulphate, iron sulfate, manganese oxide, and zinc oxide. It's $48.00 a yard. Here are your options for getting some. Gro-Well will charge you a $100.00 delivery fee with a 5 yard minimum order. Arrange with gardening friends to share a delivery. You could also haul it in your truck bed to avoid the delivery charge (cover the load or it might all blow out). The problem with picking it up from them is location - they are at the far east end of Craig Road, at Nellis AFB. Your other source is Plant World Nursery. They sell a yard cube bag that will fit in the back of a truck for $60.00, or call me - I can get a discount, and often have it being delivered someplace so you can share with me. This is the soil I use in my garden and NOTHING beats it. This soil sounds like it might be too expensive for your little garden right? The key thing to consider here is that this soil needs nothing for you to plant your garden. Put in your worms and your seedlings and your farming. Get good dirt and you'll get good veggies. Let me make one last case for this soil. If you use the sand based dirt, you will need a raised bed of about 12-16 inches, if you use the tomato soil, you only need 6-8 inches of it in your bed because it's nutritional density is so much better. Less work, less material, better results. It's a no brainier as far as I'm concerned.