Soil test results, questions....

[CrazyAboutOrchids]

Sent out my soil samples, priority mail to UCONN Testing lab, on Feb 29 and the results were in the mail today. PH is high, but phosphorus and potassium are above optimum so not sure how I should fertilize for tomatoes and veggies, I had planned on using plant-tone and tomato-tone. These are raised beds, 3 years old, I garden organically.

Ph 6.6
Calcium > 4000 lbs per acre
Magnesium> 500 lbs per acre
Phosphorus> 100 lbs per acre
Potassium > 600 lbs per acre
Boron .80 range s/b .1-2.0
Iron 2.80 range s/b 1.0-4.0
Manganese 5.8 range s/b .1-20
Zinc 2.6 range s/b .1-70
Aluminum 20 range s/b 10-300

They recommend 2 lbs Nitrogen per 1000 sq ft with a side dressing of 3 lbs of 10-6-4. Organic content is high and they recommend no compost or wood ashes for "some time", guess my fireplace dumpings will have to find another home next winter....

I will be growing tomatoes, beets, squash, beans, broccoli, lettuce, herbs to name a few. There are already shallots and garlic planted from the fall. Can I still use the stuff I bought or should I use bone meal, blood meal or what?
Thanks in advance for any responses!!!

[jennifer28]

Hi there,

I am in Connecticut too. I live near the shore. I was thinking about your question and here is what I came up with, I should tell you that I do have a degree in Biology- although I don't really use it in my current job-and I'm not some expert...although 2 out of 3 Tomatovillians agree that I am indeed a NERD.

So the first thing you need is an organic source of nitrogen. Now there are things like corn meal gluten but it kills seedlings even though it does add nitrogen. It is found in weed killers like Preen. More effective organic sources of nitrogen are alfalfa meal or fish emulsion. I've used both. I like alfalfa meal. Or you can use blood meal, which is 13-0-0 or feather meal which is 12-0-0. I've used both of those but I like feather meal. Blood meal tends to attract raccoons. I didn't notice the raccoons as much with feather meal but maybe the raccoons were having an off year. Who knows? I have a lot of critters here, including raccoons. So just be warned...

The next thing you probably want is an organic mix of 10-6-4 fertilizer.
Off hand, I don't know of a 10-6-4 organic fertilizer that is all mixed. Maybe you can take the Espoma 5-3-3 plant tone and you can do 6 LBS of the Espoma plant tone (5-3-3) per 1000 sq ft. I think this should give you close to 10-6-4 with a little more potassium but plants need potassium to form starches and proteins and to help them resist disease... and when I first started using espoma products I went a bit crazy with the over application of them and I still got a good harvest, in spite of myself.

So if I were in your position, I think that is what I would do.

And it's nice to hear from another person in Connecticut.

[CrazyAboutOrchids]

Thanks Jennifer!

I have used alfalfa before and liked the results with it, it was on my lawn though, not in the garden. I have plant tone as well but will need to pick up some more.

So no go on the 40 lbs of tomato-tone I just got a great deal on aye? Oh well, maybe next year. I posted on another forum and was told I could continue to add a bit of my ashes to my beet bed, that I could use tomato-tone but I'd have to increase the nitrogen to 3 lbs per instead of 2.

Another question, if I use a meal, would I use the same amount, I believe I read somewhere I have to increase for organics, but don't remember the amount - maybe 1.5 times if organics are used? I typically don't measure my organic stuff like I used to years ago with non-organic, I apply, look for results and adjust my behavior based on what I see. Oh well, new stuff for this aging dog...

PS: I am on the Western side of CT.

Thanks again for the response!

[fortyonenorth]

Crazy - Did you recently post on another forum regarding your soil test? If not, then you're the third person in the last week who has gotten pretty much the same results from UCONN.

In any event, Jennifer offers good advice. I'll add just a few things. Basically, UCONN is saying you have adequate amounts of all your major and minor nutrients. Most tests don't measure for nitrogen since it varies so much depending on environmental factors. I like feather meal and use it regularly, but I use it in combo with other N sources. Feather meal last a long time, but the keratin is very slow to break down and release it's N. If you use it as your sole N source, it's availability will not be in sync with your garden's need for N. I recommend that you use it in combo with the alfalfa meal or blood meal - of even NNS (Natural Nitrate of Soda, also labeled as Chilean Nitrate) for a total of 2 lbs. N.

Since, your nutrient levels are very satisfactory, the Tomato Tone (even though it's a bit lower test than recommended by UCONN) will be excellent. Espoma's recommended application rates are generous and it includes beneficial bacteria and fungi. I think it would give your plants all they need. If you go the TTone route, you can add a bit more broadcast nitrogen - say 3 pounds instead of 2.

Good luck!

Rich

[jennifer28]

Originally Posted by fortyonenorth

Crazy - Did you recently post on another forum regarding your soil test? If not, then you're the third person in the last week who has gotten pretty much the same results from UCONN.

In any event, Jennifer offers good advice. I'll add just a few things. Basically, UCONN is saying you have adequate amounts of all your major and minor nutrients. Most tests don't measure for nitrogen since it varies so much depending on environmental factors. I like feather meal and use it regularly, but I use it in combo with other N sources. Feather meal last a long time, but the keratin is very slow to break down and release it's N. If you use it as your sole N source, it's availability will not be in sync with your garden's need for N. I recommend that you use it in combo with the alfalfa meal or blood meal - of even NNS (Natural Nitrate of Soda, also labeled as Chilean Nitrate) for a total of 2 lbs. N.

Since, your nutrient levels are very satisfactory, the Tomato Tone (even though it's a bit lower test than recommended by UCONN) will be excellent. Espoma's recommended application rates are generous and it includes beneficial bacteria and fungi. I think it would give your plants all they need. If you go the TTone route, you can add a bit more broadcast nitrogen - say 3 pounds instead of 2.

Good luck!

Rich

Hey Rich,

I am just asking for my own knowledge, and because I am wondering if I am being too cautious- do you think the amount of potassium that would be added with the tomato tone would be enough to decrease the calcium in the soil to the point where it could cause blossom end rot? Or am I just being too worried about that... what do you think? I am pretty detail oriented by nature so I am just wondering if I am being too cautious and perfectionsist here?

[fortyonenorth]

Jennifer - Your caution is warranted, but in Crazy's situation she has a ton of calcium (actually two tons) so the addition of a little extra potassium won't hurt. Tomatoes will remove roughly 160 kg/ha of potassium and only 10 kg/ha of calcium - that gives you an idea of its nutrient utilization. Also, potassium is more mobile in the soil - meaning it will leach more readily than calcium and magnesium. I believe this is because it has only a single positive charge while Ca and Mg have a double positive. The soil colloid (clay particles) and organic matter are charged negatively, which is how the soil "holds" nutrients. More clay and organic matter=more nutrient holding capacity. This is why potassium leaching is a special concern on sandy soils.

Originally Posted by jennifer28

Hey Rich,

I am just asking for my own knowledge, and because I am wondering if I am being too cautious- do you think the amount of potassium that would be added with the tomato tone would be enough to decrease the calcium in the soil to the point where it could cause blossom end rot? Or am I just being too worried about that... what do you think? I am pretty detail oriented by nature so I am just wondering if I am being too cautious and perfectionsist here?

[jennifer28]

Well I didn't realize you had all that tomato tone...
The tomato tone is 3-4-6. So if you took that and you used 6 LBS per 1000 sq ft that would still not give you enough nitrogen (this is not including the extra nitrogen they recommended you add) and would give you too much phosphorus and potassium, which your soil test results showed there was already too much in your soil. The big concern here for tomatoes, at least, is not as much as there is less nitrogen but more that there would be too much potassium because when there is too much potassium it can decrease calcium and magnesium and with tomatoes we know that not enough calcium can cause blossom end rot.
Depending on what happens with the weather this year - if we get all the rain we have been getting here in Connecticut like the past two years then I would be concerned about calcium deficiency. And then that just gets more annoying because when you see blossom end rot and you try to stop it by spraying the plants with calcium, you need to be careful because it is very easy to burn the plants.

As far as the nitrogen, if you use an organic source like a blood meal then it releases the nitrogen more slowly than non-organic sources that are water soluble. The benefit of the slow release of the blood meal is that it is much less likely to burn the plants. I think the idea behind adding more of an organic source of nitrogen than a non-organic one is the amount of time it takes for the nitrogen to be released, but I would just add the 2LBs of the blood meal per 1000 sq ft. I remember when I was young I did some experiements with nitrogen and tomato plants and if you add a lot of non-organic nitrogen besides the risk of burning the plants you will get really tall plants without much fruit.

So I guess you need to decide: do you want to follow the recommendations from the soil test, or just add 6LBS of the tomato tone per 1000 sq ft and add the 2LBs of blood meal per 1000 sq ft... and then see what happens....

OR you could just do what I do and never bother getting my home soil tested (we had to get it tested at the school where I work because it is a highly industrial area and we were worried about toxins) which is that I compost my wood ashes with a bunch of other stuff and then use it after a year or so... And I have gotten really into worm farming because my students like the pet worms so I have been using worm tea and castings and having very good success.

As an aside- I would guess by your username that you like to grow orchids- one of our family homes was in Simsbury and had been the home of the late Dr. Mumford from UCONN- I never grew orchids but he was supposedly a well known orchid breeder, have you ever heard of him? I was just curious because that was one of the best growing properties I ever lived on.

[jennifer28]

Thank you. I missed the calcium part there - "Calcium > 4000 lbs per acre."

[CrazyAboutOrchids]

Thanks again to both of you!

Yes, 41, I did post at that other forum. I read this forum religiously every day and have been a member for a while, but I don't ever post here, I just lurk and soak up the info I read. I do think it's a tad odd that Sue and I both have similar soil tests results, but I guess for things other than the PH, they don't get into specifics. On the UCONN test results, they have the item tested (say calcium), then a test result (in my case >4000 lbs per acre for calcium) and then a table with levels for below optimum, optimum and above optimum. My calcium result shows at the upper spectrum of above optimum. Maybe once they get to that upper level, they just don't bother getting into specifics.

I think I had read in Sue's thread that her beds were pretty organic although the lawn it is near may not be. All of my property is dealt with organically, unless a specific area needs a quick fix, and the spot where this garden is was actually my kids play area that we tore down and built a garden in its place. The beds were made with a mix of composts, soil, peat, vermiculite the first year, and when I added, I dug down below the beds to incorporate the ground soil. Last year I just added leftovers from whatever we had around here and in the spring, double dug all the beds again to mix stuff in deep. The beds are something like 6 inches or 8 inches above ground, but the soil inside of them has been turned to a depth of at least 12 - 15 inches. When I added compost somewhere else, I'd throw the leftovers in the garden, when I mulched my beds with sweet peat (awesome stuff, btw), I threw the leftovers in there. At the end of the season, I dumped all my leftover baggies of organic stuff in the garden so it has a bit of alfalfa, some green sand, blood meal, bone meal, but nothing of any great amount was added. And then, of course, I save up my wood ashes and add them in. My PH might be a tad higher right now because since the test samples were taken, I've added wood ash twice. Oops. Well, my beets seemed to love ashes last year, they grew like mad and I was able to bottle 18 or 20 pints from what was grown in a small 3 x 5 bed. Of course, my garlic didn't bulb up as big as I expected last year and maybe this test shows why.

I think my game plan for this weekend will be to get some alfalfa, some bone meal, some blood meal, and some feather meal if I can find that - not sure I have seen that anywhere but I will look for it - and make up a nitrogen cocktail for the beds. It's a bit early, think that will be okay? My thinking is that if I do it now, the organics will have a chance to break down as the soil warms up and be ready for the plants when they go in. Am I wrong in that thinking? Should I wait?

Thank you!
Sandy (Sandra_zone6) from elsewhere....

[fortyonenorth]

You can add the bonemeal now without issue. Nitrogen really isn't useful until soil temps top 50-55 deg. Around here, that's generally April, but this year (with the unseasonable weather) who knows? If you want to add some now - garlic loves spring-applied N, by the way - I'd suggest you split the application: 1/3 now, 1/3 mid-April and 1/3 mid_May. You probably plant-out your tomatoes and peppers mid-May or late-May, right? That, along with the Tomato Tone, should do you well.