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Post by littleminnie on Oct 16, 2011 19:10:30 GMT -5
The group here is more experienced than any other gardening forum. Do you want to discuss my soil test for the year?
Last one was in fall 2009. The main area was coarse sand, 7.3ph, very high P and moderately high K. OM only 2.6.
This fall's test from all over the garden. 7.3ph, very high P and K, cal and mag also high. OM 4.7%.
First off with the increase (albeit small and far to go) of OM you would think the ph would be closer to neutral. Why so high? Should I apply sulfur over the whole area? I usualy focus on the potato area.
Also what do you think causes such a high P rating? I don't use fertilizer with it. I use compost, manure, cover crops and fish emulsion for N. Is the area naturally high in P perhaps?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 16, 2011 22:13:49 GMT -5
Gardens fertilized with manure tend to accumulate high levels of P. Compost also puts more P into the soil than the plants can use based on the N available in compost. The fish emulsion is also adding P to the soil. Cover crops don't add or subtract P from the soil. The P may not be readily available to the plants though due to the pH and the high Ca content, which tends to bind P, making it insoluble.
High Calcium/Magnesium levels and basic pH are often due to soil being derived from limestone. It's really hard to change the pH of a soil that is predominately derived from limestone. Guess it depends on whether your sand is mostly silica or mostly calcite.
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Post by steev on Oct 17, 2011 0:38:03 GMT -5
If you have access to lots of oak leaves or conifer needles, you could lower the pH and increase OM simultaneously by working them in.
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Post by littleminnie on Oct 17, 2011 18:04:16 GMT -5
The fish emulsion I use is all N.
Do you really think a ph of 7.3 and high calcium level can bind the P? 7.3 is close to neutral.
I found a cool map of MN the soil parent material in my area is outwash and the subsoil is psamments, formed from quartz.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 17, 2011 20:58:11 GMT -5
Hmmm. A psamment base... covered by outwash... Tough place to garden: Sand over sand. Yikes!!!! Must take a lot of fertilizer to grow anything. Here's a link that graphs P availability vs pH: images.crinet.com/AgSource-Cooperative-Services/Agronomy-&-Feed/Soil-Phosphorus-Reactions.jpg You could do much worse for your garden than pH 7.3. My brother has an outwash type soil in his garden: Coarse sand to small pebbles with little organic matter. It's great to till in the spring, but it sure needs a lot of water. I imagine fertilizer and nutrients wash right through it. I think quartz is a great base for garden soil. I'm guessing that most of the sand is quartz based, since that is the most durable stone in a glacial outwash scenario. There's a goodly amount of limestone also though as demonstrated by the pH and the high Ca. So if it were my garden, and if I had a budget for amending the soil, I think I'd want to add in addition to the compost fine particles of things that are not readily digested by micro-organisms: Peat, coir, clay, etc. The fine particles will wash through the soil, but the micro-organisms eating the compost will grab onto some of them and glue them into the soil structure. |
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Post by littleminnie on Oct 21, 2011 19:22:50 GMT -5
Yes sand on sand. 5 miles away is the Sand Dunes State Park. Still preferrable to clay for me.
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Post by steev on Oct 21, 2011 19:53:42 GMT -5
Needs as much OM as you can work in, to hold water and release nutrients slowly so they aren't so easy to flush out. Given your Winter, as much as you can, sheet-compost to work in in the Spring.
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MikeM
grub
frost-free 365.25 + clayish soil + altitude 210m + latitude 34S + rain 848mm/yr
Posts: 91
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Post by MikeM on Oct 22, 2011 8:34:18 GMT -5
Yes sand on sand. 5 miles away is the Sand Dunes State Park. Still preferrable to clay for me. ;D Have to confess its the other way around for me... gardened for about 12 years on almost-pure sand, and on clay for the past 15 years. I'll stick to the clay, if that's ok   ;D (or it'll stick to me... ;D) |
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Post by steev on Oct 22, 2011 10:03:36 GMT -5
I agree. Clay is a pain to work, but it's potentially very rich. I think its drainage problems are more easily addressed than are sand's. I admit that initially working on clay requires much greater optimism to forge ahead.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 22, 2011 12:09:48 GMT -5
I really like growing in my fields with clay-like soil. It's much easier to garden in as long as I respect the nature of clay: Never ever till first thing in the spring until after the soil dries out. I handle that by fall tilling, and then planting early crops into the fall tilled soil without further tilling of the soil. If I do my fall tilling a month before our snow-cover arrives then I can shallowly cultivate 2-3 flushes of weed seedlings before winter. Potatoes suffer from scab in my fields with lots of clay, and I have to dig most all root crops with a fork rather than just pulling them, and I have to scrape mud off my shoes regularly, but that's the only disadvantages I see about clay. I would only choose sandy soil if I exclusively grew potatoes or parsnips. |
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Post by toad on Oct 22, 2011 15:14:19 GMT -5
Never ever till first thing in the spring until after the soil dries out. Kind of concrete, that's what I had from digging my clay in the early springs, until I years ago realised the connection  |
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Post by canadamike on Oct 22, 2011 19:53:09 GMT -5
In terms of pure fertilirty, I am going with Mike on this one, albeit with reservation if one wants to grow a variety of veggies for market. The home gardening business is a different thing.
My back problems are there to witness almost 25 years working hardpan clay.
I am 53, and luckily moved to a sandy loam area. I even enjoy, almost to the point of having an orgasm, just saying the words ''sandy loam''.
Mind you , there is clay and then there is clay...where I was, «I had a friend who was helping his father harvest clay to sell to potters.
Now that is clay, not ''clayish''. I remember having to use a pickaxe to make holes for tomato plants, I was young and idealistic then, now I would rather go to the health food store than doing it again... ;D
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Post by steev on Oct 23, 2011 21:21:45 GMT -5
My farm mostly has silt, which was so hard-packed and lacking OM, that when it was dry I thought it was clay until I realized that when struck, it powdered, rather than cracking. Needing to put in some T-post fence, we drilled pilot holes with a jackhammer and breaking point, powered with a wheeled generator. I'll never do that in Summer again.
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Post by littleminnie on Oct 29, 2011 20:33:30 GMT -5
In terms of pure fertilirty, I am going with Mike on this one, albeit with reservation if one wants to grow a variety of veggies for market. The home gardening business is a different thing. My back problems are there to witness almost 25 years working hardpan clay. I am 53, and luckily moved to a sandy loam area. I even enjoy, almost to the point of having an orgasm, just saying the words ''sandy loam''. Mind you , there is clay and then there is clay...where I was, «I had a friend who was helping his father harvest clay to sell to potters. Now that is clay, not ''clayish''. I remember having to use a pickaxe to make holes for tomato plants, I was young and idealistic then, now I would rather go to the health food store than doing it again... ;D LOL. I think I am too impatient to garden on clay. Not that we get that much rain here, but it would drive me nuts to have it rain and not get to get in and do what I needed to do. I work part time so my off days are gardening days no matter the weather. |
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;D (or it'll stick to me... ;D)
