Firstly, I'm going to apologise for 1) my ignorance, 2) the errors of my ways for what I've already done (or haven't done) for my garden which we started from scratch around 9 months ago, and 3) for the length of this post.
We moved in around a year ago now and we have quite a lot of fill on our site. Mostly clay, with some silt and some rubble (!), the clay is the clumpy stick to your shoes type, and if you dig a little you get the rotten smell and real light brown clay look to the soil. Either way, not fantastic....
Because I'm up to to different stages i will break this up into front garden, backyard and inbetween courtyard categories. So....
Front Garden
A fair bit of blended soil was brought in about 6 months ago and mixed with gypsum and existing soil for the front garden. Tall fescue turf was laid and in the garden beds we got 'Organic Mulch' from bark king, layered with Pinebark mulch on top. We planted the area out a little over a month ago, when digging holes for plants I did find some worms which were encouraging, but I still felt it was quite clumpy/clayey.
My concerns/thoughts
Just really concerned that I haven't done enough to feed the soil, plants currently seem healthy enough, I have just finished giving the area its first dose of Molasses/Seasol solution, but don't really know enough and am overwhelmed with all the information about Powerfeed, Zeolite, Seamungus, oh there were others but the names escape me.
Backyard
Did a similar thing with the backyard, however planted the lawn from seed, which worked better that we'd have ever hoped - we have recycled water so were able to keep the water up to it last summer when it was young. In the backyard we also used 'Organic Mulch' in the garden beds. Sorry for saying this Fu, but we also put down some Weed Matting against our fence, mainly to suppress the weeks that were coming through from all our neighbours. So organic underneath and on top of the weed matting we put down the Pinebark mulch, this was around 6 months ago and we haven't planted this area out just yet.
I did plant a Flowering Ash, however, this died as I found out our concreters were putting all of the excess water from our flooded alfresco on the plant - we are talking about a LOT of water here!! Anyway, I'm a bit scared about replanting in this area, I currently have a Flowering Cherry (Blireana) in a pot which I want to plant there but I'm afraid I'll kill it also.
Concerns/Thoughts
I'm thinking about removing the pinebark, putting down green mulch, then putting the pinebark back on. Is this the best option? I'm also thinking about removing the weedmatting, good idea? Then what should I add to this area to improve the soil? It is currently quite damp still due to the clay content i assume. I can dig stuff in as nothing is planted out yet. Is there anything I can put over the lawn area to improve it also? Powerfeed?
Courtyard
This area is basically a building site, just starting out here after my concreting - so i have a bit of crushed rock, bit of sand, mostly clay soil - sounds and looks like a nightmare atm but the area is only small - around 2.5m x 2.5m.
Thoughts
Do I try to improve area with molasses, seasol, green mulch, powerfeed? What else should i do? Or do I remove it all and start from scratch? Not planning on planting for a good 6 months. I considered using it as like a compost heap for 6 months. But I really have no idea what i'm doing!!
Thank you!!
If you got this far, a big thank you. I'm sorry for waffeling, I have never started a garden from scratch but I do enjoy working in the garden - just that I'm a real novice and wish I knew more!! If you can help, and have heaps of patience, I'd love some advice as to what to do, i know I've made some mistakes, but hopefully we can turn things around with some advice or ideas! Cheers!