Hydrated Lime ?

[JohnWayne]

I am told I'm needing a large amount of lime on my garden but the information I[m finding leaves me not knowing what to do. Yes I plan to send in a soil sample but the results will be 6 weeks getting back and the local agg agent tells me that everyone in the county needs an average of 5000 lbs of lime per acre.

I also read that it takes 3 months for lime to do its work on the soil and that Hydrated Lime does so much faster but then other sites on the net have said not to use hydrated lime without really saying why.

Anyone care to tell me what is best please ?

Thanks

[paulgrow]

Lime will raise the pH in your soil.
I would wait until you get the test results.In the mean time you could pick up on of the self testers and get a general idea what your pH is.

What are you going to grow?

Paul

[Doug9345]

Ag lime is finely ground limestone(calcium carbonate). Hydrate lime is calcium hydroxide.
Here is a link that talks about it. http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/...e.aspx?pid=144

Hydrated lime will be very quick acting and will burn plants, think lye. I don't know if it will last the whole season or not.

The question I have is what was your garden like last year. That should give you an idea where your garden is like before you get test results.

[JohnWayne]

Paul, Tomatoes, Cukes, runner beans, half runner beans, Rape, kale, turnip, mustard, Radish, beets, Okra, purple hull cow peas and a few watermelon and honeydew vines.

Doug
"The question I have is what was your garden like last year. That should give you an idea where your garden is like before you get test results."

For the last few years my garden has been a nightmare in some ways. Okra that gets only 12 to 18 inches tall. Green Beans that hardly produce. Stunted tomato plants etc.

But then my cow peas were beautiful until the deer ate them. Greens and turnips seem to do well. Cukes do ok as does squash.

The tomato plants have a light green color and never get the dark green they used too. And what few tomatoes I get out of a couple hundred plants have a very high amount of blossum end rot.

This has been getting worse over the last 3 or four years and at first I thought it was because of the drought and the deer. I know the deer ate a 100 foot row of cucumber plants down to nothing and while they don't do that to tomoto plants, what they do is eat the new growth. So the plants should have stopped growing (and they did) and put all that energy into fruit but that did not happen.

I picked maybe 20 small (Kellogg's breafast tomatoes were the size of a biscuit and they were the biggest) tomatoes.

I have spent a good deal of time talking to the wildlife agents and biologist. I gave up hunting years ago and I hate to start it again but find I have little choice. The deer are going to be put down but that is only a part of what is going on.

Last year I hauled horse manure. What would amount to about 10 pick-up loads. All shoveled by hand, Only to find out it had herbicide in it. But I had tried 30+ tomato and pepper plants in the horse pasture beside my house (Had not been farmed in years) and only a corner of the garden
so that isn't my problem.

All in all, I have no idea what to do and I'm about afraid to do anything. It has crossed my mind to pass on the garden this year and take up fishing again. But we are now out of the drought and I already have seed ordered as well as seed sent by members so quitting isn't really an option though finding another piece of ground to garden just might be.

[Doug9345]

I'm surprised it's taking 6 weeks to get a test back. With out a test and since your county agent say everybody is using lime here is what I would do. I'd get as small a bag of hydrated lime as I could, go to the link I posted and figure out how much lime you'll need for half a square yard to raise the ph from 5.5 to 6.5. It depends on what kind of soil you have. I'd then dig up a pot full dirt from that treated area and one from a untreated are, bring them in where it is warm and plant some bean seed in them. Dry beans from the store will work. I'd also be tempted to add enough more lime to the 1/2 square yard so that it would move the Ph from 5 to 6.5, remember that you have already put lime in it and also remember that you only need about 70% as much hydrated lime as ag lime. Take another pot full from the further amended soil. In two weeks you should see if the beans in the amended soil are doing better. I'd try to keep the beans about 80 if I could and give them plenty of light so that the are trying to grow quickly.

Another possibility is if your lawn is growing you could experiment on that. I assume it has the same soil as your garden.

[Cole_Robbie]

If everyone is using lime, you must have an acidic soil, and the lime will adjust the ph upward. I think you were on the right track with the manure, it's just bad luck about the herbicide. Even after you get the ph correct, most soils will be deficient in organic matter, which is why manure is such a popular fertilizer.

[dice]

Lots of information:
http://extension.missouri.edu/public...b.aspx?P=G9107
http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G9102

You need the soil test to see how much magnesium is already
there (do you need agricultural lime or dolomite lime; the
dolomite has magnesium, the agricultural lime does not).