bertiefox
gardener
There's always tomorrow!
Posts: 236
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Post by bertiefox on Jun 2, 2011 9:30:04 GMT -5
Although I've been mulching, feeding and improving our heavy clay (limy) soil for eight years, there are still patches in which the plants all come up with very yellow leaves; this includes French beans, raspberries, strawberries and many other things, including trees and shrubs, such as Persimmon. I thought piling on organic material would have rectified the situation by now. I've even used a conifer mulch which should have acidified the soil a bit more. What's the quickest 'fix' for these patches of soil where lots of things never grow successfully?  |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 2, 2011 11:05:00 GMT -5
Ha! My mother must share your soil. I tried for years to rescue her trees. I tried sulfur, and sulphate, and iron, and Epsom salts, and mulch, and fertilizer... Many crops with shallow roots respond OK, but I can't add enough amendments to change the pH of the soil deep down where the tree roots live. And I might as well give up on the strawberries.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jun 2, 2011 19:38:46 GMT -5
Urine? Maybe? Our corn plants are slightly more yellow than the neighbors who use commercial fertilizer. We grew beans and peas behind the corn last year to help with the nitrogen issue. This year there are a lot of volunteers in the patch. I'm thinking you might want to consider a nitrogen fixing tree to get it deeper into the soil? I THINK, Elder? Russian Olive? There's something else I can't think of at the moment...
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Post by steev on Jun 2, 2011 20:46:05 GMT -5
I think both black locust and black acacia will fix nitrogen, plus they're pretty good firewood, eventually.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jun 3, 2011 5:20:07 GMT -5
Being good for firewood eventually is a plus in our book.
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Post by steev on Jun 3, 2011 10:43:49 GMT -5
The black acacia is called California Koa in fine woodworking circles, very attractive, dark heartwood for cabinetry, etc.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jun 3, 2011 16:34:58 GMT -5
I'll have to store that data in my memory banks. My husband is starting to teach my sons carpentry.
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bertiefox
gardener
There's always tomorrow!
Posts: 236
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Post by bertiefox on Jun 4, 2011 3:59:06 GMT -5
Elder (ornamental 'Black Lace') does very well on our soil, but things like cherry plums start to suffer once they get their roots down well as Joseph above suggests. I haven't tried foliar feeds on things like strawberries (seaweed solution? nettle tea?) so perhaps that might help with my shallower rooted plants.
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Post by steev on Jun 4, 2011 11:06:12 GMT -5
Could the deep-soil problem be a clay layer, rather than alkalinity, which seems not to bother the plums rooting near the surface, which I assume you've been able to ameliorate. That happens on my farm; trees poop out when they hit clay.
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Post by steev on Jun 8, 2011 19:50:21 GMT -5
If you have a tractor, I would suggest a subsoiler to break the clay as deep as possible to facilitate getting organic matter as deep as possible. The trouble with clay is its density and failure to drain, so things can be really anaerobic and soggy down there. Pears are much more tolerant of this than other fruits.
If your situation isn't tractor-sized, perhaps you have to resign yourself to a long campaign of trenching to break and amend that clay.
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Post by paquebot on Jun 8, 2011 22:24:42 GMT -5
Find out what's under your normal tilling area. Could be chalk or almost pure limestone. Maybe fine for grapes but not your normal garden vegetables. You might have to replace whatever is there with better soil to a depth of about 2 feet.
Martin
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Feb 7, 2014 11:47:06 GMT -5
Ha! My mother must share your soil. I tried for years to rescue her trees. I tried sulfur, and sulphate, and iron, and Epsom salts, and mulch, and fertilizer... Many crops with shallow roots respond OK, but I can't add enough amendments to change the pH of the soil deep down where the tree roots live. And I might as well give up on the strawberries. To follow up on this post. Someone suggested adding mulch around my mother's peach tree so that the roots could get the needed iron from the soil/compost interface. So in the fall a year ago I added about 3 inches of mulch out to the drip line. In the spring, the tree leafed out, and sent out hundreds of new shoots, then it exhausted the resources and/or got poisoned by herbicides in the mulch, and promptly turned yellow and tried to die for the rest of the summer. |
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Post by johno on Feb 10, 2014 12:54:29 GMT -5
I have slightly alkaline clay soil, too. The problem is structural. Roots just can't flourish. Double-digging and mixing in lots of humus and/or compost, manure, leaf mold, etc. is the answer. Alternatively, do basically the same thing but with raised beds. The extra work of building boxes more than offsets the deeper digging. The clay has to be mixed with organic matter and aerated.
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Post by richardw on Feb 10, 2014 13:37:33 GMT -5
Sounds like you should look to trying adding gypsum lime which is fantastic stuff for breaking up the clay structure making it more porous,it doesn't alter the PH a lot either.
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