Q. Hi Pete, My wife and I moved into a great house last year, with some fruit trees and several gardens from the original owner. i have many questions but i’ll just ask you one. i cleaned out an area on the south side of the house (it gets alot of sun too!) and very thoroughly gutted it of all the former plants and roots. i think i got rid of about 200+ lbs. of dirt as well. then i covered it with landscaping cloth to kill any weeds i may have missed. the soil is very powdery and hard to get wet. what other steps should i take over the winter to ensure a really good vegetable garden in the spring? i was thinking a couple of layers of new topsoil might be good. what do you think? Devon Haverly – Tacoma, WA
A. The most likely reason the soil is powdery and hard to wet is because you removed 200 pounds of topsoil and are now left with subsoil. Subsoil is the layer of soil below the topsoil, which is very low in organic content and has a higher concentration of fine mineral particles. This makes it more difficult to wet and a poor substrate for plants to grow in. Subsoil also erodes easily when not covered by the more biologically and physically complex topsoil. There are very few circumstances where topsoil needs to be removed or replaced. Those who regularly read my column know that I do not advocate replacing native topsoil with foreign topsoil. It is better to incorporate organic matter (like compost) to existing topsoil to improve it. I am not sure how deep you excavated and if there are any traces of topsoil left. But if you need to bring in outside topsoil to replace the topsoil you removed I suggest adding a few inches of compost since most purchased topsoil products don’t have the biological or organic matter content necessary for healthy landscapes. The handling also disrupts topsoil’s structure. You can get compost that is produced by Pierce County (Pierce County Recycled Earth Products) by the truckload.