Hi all,

There are a few of us in Highland Park (South of Pasadena) who are in the process of turning a vacant lot into a garden. The history of the lot is that it once was covered by a house that burned down in a fire started by some riff-raff. So you can imagine the soil is very compacted, hardpan and the top soil is sandy. The weeds that have made it home include an abundance of lambs quarter gone to seed, dried up plantains, and some low grass I can't identify. For the most part the land is barren and dry. So I weeded what I could, and started a heap of compost. What I would like to do is eventually plant into the finished compost as the base of my topsoil.