A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Landscape trials and triumphs Soil Question.

Hello, i'm looking to move my moms garden to a sunnier spot. We live in north west new jersey, and the soil is full of rocks of all sizes. The site i'm preparing will take another month so this is a future garden for next year.
My question is...
is the dark earthy soil beneath the leaves in the dense woods good to fill the raised bed with? (it is very dark black with roots and years of decomposed leaves and dead branches making up its composition)
I am assuming it is very acidic?, but not heavy or clay like.
Will this type of soil work along with peat moss and manure that will be added next spring?
Thanks!

Welcome, Guroo. This sounds like fabulous soil. You may want to screen out any bigger, partially decomposed chunks from this. But it should do you pretty well.

The wood soil sounds great! I live in ROCKland County, NY, just north of you, and have very dense clay/rocky soil. We have to mix in compost or store bought soil to be able to plant most things here. We used to have access to woody soil behind us, but they put in 6 houses there - I envy your access!

Probably not heavily acidic unless the area is wooded with oak or pine. You probably will not need to add peat moss or manure since those are both organics and that's what your soil is to begin with. If anything you will need to add clay and silt/sand to the mixture so the soil isn't so loose that tall plants fall over until they develop a good enough root system to stabilize themselves. Also all the seeds that haven't sprouted because of a lack of light or leaf mulch covering the soil will sprout when you bring the soil out to the light of day. So if you are going to plant plants rather than seeds I would use preen or some other kind of seed suppressant so your not overwhelmed with weeds in the new bed.

These are just suggestions from what I've discovered with my own garden that I've had a few short years.

Thanks for the responses!
After more work in the "future garden" today i came across patches of orange/brownish soil. Looks clay-like, silty and sandy. It is in various sections of the garden area about 1ft to 1.5 ft down.
I am assuming mixing this in with the wood soil will do fine.
Also, How far down should i be turning over the soil for optimal drainage?
The deeper i dig in some spots i hit more orange/brownish soil.
Thanks!

yeah living on 3 acres is nice. the privacy is great, though living on a hill in a wooded area makes it hard to find 8 hours of sunlight. This new spot gets 8 hours; 4 morning, 4 afternoon in late spring.

At least the depth of the spade itself (10-12 inches or so). If you have poor drainage, then deeper. A tiller can really help with this task. Rental can be very reasonable.

alright ill be tilling up about 2 feet down to mix up the clayish soil. though i believe there are too many big rocks for a tiller as of right now. most likely would damage the machine.

The clayish soil is your subsoil and should do great as a component of your new soil.