mrbhorman
Posted by KimmSr from MI-4a/5b on 2010-03-20 08:51:00

Most everywhere I have been in Ohio, except right along the Lake Erie shoreline your soil is clay, and that clay soil needs lots of organic matter (as does any sandy soil). What organic matter will do for clay soil is open up the soil so water will flow through easier and nutrients will be more readily available to plants. To have your soil tested talk with the people at your counties office of the Ohio State University Cooperative Extension Service and they will be able to supply you with information about that. What you need to know beside what the pH is is the why that is where it is and do you need to add a calcitic or a ddolomitic lime.
What I have found about the Landscape Fabric "weed" barriers is that they are a real pain after a while. What I use is a few layers of newspaper covered with a good (usually shredded leaves) mulch to hide the paper and hold it in place. Newspaper can also be laid over the grass and since you would now be denying the grass access to light (which all plants need to grow) that grass will die and the soil bacteria will digest that now dead grass and put the nutrients the grass had (removed from your soil) back into your soil to feed other plants.