@Pyewacket you picked one of the worst places on earth to try to garden in- Lubbock. Literally and physically, but humidity wouldn't have helped in those temps. City Water sources are also chemically restrictive to plants (chloramines instead of chlorine), drouth, that when it does rain will be thick mud falling from the sky, scouring winds turning glass opaque. Be very proud of your accomplishments there. I cannot imagine using epsom salts as a fertilizer, it just has no teeth to it. Yup, the type of bags you buy depend on the size of the wood shreds, chuckl. Apparently potting soil has zero dirt, raised bed garden dirt drains really fast and needs tons of water and fertilizers added constantly. Dirt for gardens is wood compost ( which fights the root knot nematodes that cripple our plants in sandy soils) but needs mixed into gardens shallowly. I fight this by using different types of bagged stuff. Mushroom compost is great, but I have all sorts of fungi that pop up. Birds nest, Chlorophytum molybdites, decomping wood decay shrooms, etc. The really good thing about that is the mycelium those shrooms spring from are really really good with the roots of the plants. Black Cow manure in a more clayey medium that helps bind the shredded woods. Texas has Calif based bagged soil now that gardners like - Happy Frog potting soil, Fox Farms soil (for flowers.) Cost prohibitive- it is shipped from California.
Do you know WHERE in Ny you will be going? Many of our friends on this site
https://garden.org/thread/go/1... are in NY, and Pa.
