I HAVE A 5 X 9 FOOT GARDEN THAT I AM GOING TO ADD 3 INCHES OF PEAT MOSS INTO AND DIG IN TO THE TOP 8 INCHES OF SOIL. I REALIZE THAT PEAT MOSS IS ACIDIC, HOW MUCH LIME DO I APPLY WHEN DIGGING IN? WHAT TYPE OF LIME DO YOU USE? MY SOIL IS CLAY AND ALREADY SLIGHTLY ACIDIC, SO I'M SURE I'LL NEED SOME LIME BUT I KNOW NOT ENOUGH APPLIED WON'T DO A THING AND TOO MUCH WILL BE BAD TOO.
THANKS FOR ANY IMPUT.

LISAANN (ZONE 6) MARYLAND

Lisann,

Do a soil pH test before adding lime. Take some samples (spoonful or two) from various sections of the area where you're garden will be and combine them. Do this before you add your peat moss and after. You'll need this soil sample to add to a pH test kit, which is available at most garden centers or nurseries for under $10.

If you have an agricultural extension agency in your area (most counties do) you could submit a sample to them for an even more accurate reading. Plus, they can advise you as to how much lime you should add.(Some kits come with a calculation table, too).

When we have to lime our lawn (we also have very acidic soil), we use calcitic pelletized lime.

gardenz

Why are you using a non renewable resource such as peat moss when you live in an area where a lot of tree leaves (much better and much less expensive) are available?
Testing for soil pH before adding any lime is a good idea, but testing right after the addition of peat moss won't help since it will take months for the soil bateria to work on the peat. Any lime that is added to a garden should be done in the fall so it does have a chance to work on the soil problem that caused the low pH.

Why not use compost? It does a much better job of conditioning soil and you do not have to worry about having to readjust your pH.

Also don't dig in the peat (or compost) let it sit on top and the micro-herd will take what it needs when it needs it. Digging just kills off the life in the soil so dig/till as little as possible.

You've raised a question which is debated by many, lisaann. The "renewability" of peat moss [bogs]. Like a lot of subjects, including methods of gardening, there's as many people that feel peat is non-renewable and will be harvested to extinction: http://arar.essortment.com/peatmoss_rtfv.htm

As there are those that feel there is no basis for concern:
http://www.hortsource.com/featuresPeat.htm
http://www.peatmoss.com/concern.html

Basically, there's no "nutritional" benefit of peat moss added to the soil. It's more a filler. In my case, when I first started gardening on a barren pallette of land over 20 years ago, I used peat to help
my sandy soil retain water.

True, well-aged and sweet-smelling compost is the best all-round additive to any soil. Will correct a myriad of imperfections and benefit plants. But, if you're starting from scratch, you can't use what you don't have! :_|

If there's any way you could get your hands on (not literally) some horse or cow manure to add to those leaves, grass clippings and barely decomposed materials, that could really help speed things up a bit. The addition of the peat would just serve to "lighten" things up a bit. You'd still have to wait till that manure aged (maybe 3 months or so - not sure on the timing). But, if you could do that now, you'd be set by your first frost free date to start planting.

Then, there's always municpal compost. That could be chancey, as there's still a problem (again, yet another debate) concerning residual pesticides in municipal compost that's been made with grass clippings and leaves from residential lawns. But, it's still another choice.

Otherwise, there's always bagged compost. BUT...be careful there. Not all bagged compost is alike and not all is any good. OG has an archived article on this very subject: http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-5-21-110,00.html

As important as this little plot of land is to your well-being, lisann, I'm sure you'll find some way to make a go of it! BTW: Regardless of their astrological sign...I maintain gardeners are a most stubborn lot! We have to be....why would we keep coming back, doing the same thing, year after year, in spite of last year's failures, all the bugs, diseases, weather, etc. that we know we'll be up against again! X-(

gardenz

Lisa, I feel your pain. My biggest challenge was working hardpan clay and caliche in Nebraska into good, workable soil. Remember that mostly clay is formed because of weather conditions in an area combined with a few other local conditions...so that no matter how much stuff you add to it, the weather will be working to turn it back into clay. The trick therefore, is to steal a march on it by getting so much rough, chunky organic matter in there, that the weather cannot disentigrate it in one or two seasons. The thing that worked best for me was to go to a stable and get enough free manure mixed with sawdust and woodchips from their pile to make a four inch layer on the ground. Then we covered that with leaves stolen from the side of the road, and twelve inches of free woodchips from a tree company that I stopped and talked to while they were working. I let that sit all winter long, and in the spring planted a cover crop, which I tilled in with some rock phosphate, greensand, glacial rock dust, and regular play sand. The last four ingredients were the only ones I paid for. The result was thick, black, crumbly, slightly chunky soil that could grow anything and was chock full of worms of all sorts. After that I never tilled at all, but did a combination of trench and layer composting.

I live in an ancient glacial lake bed in the bottom of the valley floor of Missoula, Montana. Where we don't have crappy sandy soil, we have ample (3"-5") rock and gravel - some hardpan too. I would say it is about half "soil", and half rock. Digging holes for planting fruit trees and shrubs has been a nightmare - good exercise, though.
Anyhoo, when it came time to put in the new veggie garden, I paid for my soil to be trucked in and made mounded raised beds. It was the best investment I have ever made. My friend down the street has a garden a bit larger than mine and double-dug her raised beds and constantly has to clean out rocks every year, as well as continue to amend the soil every spring and fall to keep it at an acceptable consistency.
If you can afford the soil - I answered an ad in the paper for sifted garden topsoil - that is my recommendation. Although you may want to satisfy the inner (unconscious) urge to wage a battle of wills with your clay. If you do decide to truck it in, ask for a sample and test it first to check the pH and sand/silt/clay composition. You want about equal amounts of each. Just put 1/2 C. of soil in a quart jar, fill it with water, and shake. Let it settle all day and observe the layers. The sand will be on the bottom, the silt in the middle, and the clay on top.
If you are getting into starting seeds, you will have more time to spend on that in the spring rather than amending your soil every year. The only thing I do to mine in spread compost - as much in the fall as I can - and add kelp, bone, and blood meal as needed depending on which plants were where. Good luck, and have fun!

Peat moss is a non renwable resource because it takes eons to make it. You could make some of your own in your own backyard by filling a tub with leaves and such and filling it, and keeping it filled, with water. Maybe by the time your great, great, great grandchildren are gardening it might be usable peat.
But such small quantities are insufficient to build up adequate amounts of organic matter in the soil. To start, and as recommended by Keith Baldwin, PhD is Soil Science and a professor at North Carolina State University, you need to start with about 8 inches of organic matter worked into the top 8 inches of soil. That's in clay soils, so you can imagine what sand needs.
What I've found in my sand is that if I work the OM in it apparently stimulates the soil bacteria so they digest whatever I add that season leaving no residual. If I mulch the beds heavily with shredded leaves over about 3 years I will get an increase in the humus (residual organic matter, what is left after the soil bacteria digest what they want) level in the soil, but I need to keep adding more mulch to maintain the humus level.