I'm planning to overhaul my flower beds since they really need some help. I'm going to rent a tiller to get the job done, but first, I want to enrich the soil. Is it okay if I just dump compost on the ground, till it in, and then add topsoil afterwards? After that, I plan on planting my flowers and adding mulch on top. Does this plan sound effective?
1 Answer
You might want to skip the tilling! Tilling can mess with the soil structure quite a bit. Instead, just spreading the compost on top could work well. I'm curious, how bad is your soil that you're considering adding topsoil? Some of the available topsoil isn't the best quality. Have you thought about in-place composting? You can bury organic matter like plants instead and let them break down in place. It'll turn into natural fertilizer!
So if my flower beds are basically nothing but weeds, would it be better to just cover them with compost and then dig in the plants directly instead of mixing it all in with a tiller?