My Plan to fill the new raised-raised beds...looking for comments

[Tracydr]

Where'd you get those cages?

[z_willus_d]

Originally Posted by Tracydr

Are you sure you need the lime? With local water, I bet you have plenty of calcium and magnesium, plus the pH will probably trend up. At least, that's what it does here. Although, you're much more scientific about the whole process than I am.
I have quite a bit of biochemistry background ( Masters in nutrition, Medical Doctor and Animal science undergrad), but I don't really get too scientific about my gardening. I just see what's happening in my gardening and can tell that my water makes the difference. There is no way I'd put lime anywhere near my soil!

Tracydr, what I *was* sure of was that I needed to (a) raise the pH of the medium in my beds by about a point; and (b) add a bit Ca/Mg to the somewhat "aseptic" grow medium that I had accumulated. The need for the latter is probably debatable, but I've often read that dolomite lime can helps limit the onset of BER, although it's only one of many factors involved in that condition.

Well as it turns out, it looks like I added too much lime to my beds. Over the past couple months, I've taken regular pH readings and found my pH Has risen to a range of ~7 to 8. So I've swung the pendulum too far north, and now I must add something else (probably soil sulfur) to try and correct (this time w/out over-correcting). You're right about my water. It is alkaline and will probably have the effect of increasing (or at least buffering) my medium's pH through the growing season.

Originally Posted by Tracydr

Btw, I read everyone of your threads and learn a ton! Yours and Raybos. I don't use Earthtainers but I love what you guys do!

Placing me anywhere near the class of poster that Ray is is a wide stretch of reality, but I appreciate the compliment. If "my" threads are informative, it's only because of the high caliber of commenter/poster that hard questions draw.
Thanks,
Naysen

[z_willus_d]

Originally Posted by Tracydr

Where'd you get those cages?

See this site:
http://www.burpee.com/search/search....questid=388144

Incidentally, they have free shipping on orders over $50 right now (until Monday night) with the code: "free50". And you can take $10 off of an order of$50 or more with the coupon code: "bsten". This is the site/vender where Ray suggests one obtain the pea fencing for cage support on his EarthTainers:
http://www.burpee.com/gardening-supp...rod001250.html

Always purchase those in quantities of two for discount pricing.

[z_willus_d]

Originally Posted by Tracydr

Remember, when you add organic stuff like manure and alfalfa, you get a bugger bang for your buck. Also, remember you're not doing a hydroponics or container, so you dont really need to account for everything. The bacterias and organics will produce some of this for you, given the good stuff, like alfalfa and manure.
Make sure you get a soil test, test for things like boron and selenium. Don't overdue things that can build up and not be taken away, like calcium, phosphorous, or anything that raises pH too much. It's very hard to lower your pH.

Tracy-

I'm trying something different this year. In the past, I've relied on large amounts of manure, some compost, and small amounts of organic additives (various meals, etc.), and I've found that I probably was over-fertilizing causing too much green growth, blossom drop, and other undesirable conditions. One of the problems I have had is not knowing exactly how much of the above amendments to add for a given staring media. This year, I want to use water soluble fertilizers so I can get quasi "scientific" in my application amounts (I might try half organic pricy stuff and half the cheaper that you can purchase in bulk). If I find that my results (quality, yield, disease tolerance, etc.) aren't what I'm striving for, I'll look to either a hybrid approach or going back to full organic supplement approach -- the feed the soil mantras.

One of the problems I'm going to have in evaluating my results is the shear number of variables that have changed from my old garden: different soil, new micro-climate, more sun, different plant varieties, different season, and on. So, this really is sample n=1 for me, so I want it to be as measurable as possible before I start verging into the "art" of tomato gardening.
--naysen

[marketgal]

With all the work you are putting into getting the right mix you should be aware that cement leaches lime into soil. This could be a problem if you plant acid loving plants (such as tomatoes). This would be something that you would have to monitor year after year.

[z_willus_d]

Marketgal, I had not considered that. I am fairly anal with my pH monitoring, but I tended to focus along the center of the beds and not the walls. I'll now check both locations. From my quick read through on the web, it sounds like the lime leaching reduces significantly after the first three or so years. I'll need to amend until some semi-stasis is reached.

Thanks for passing that along.
-naysen

[dice]

If your pH is a little high, and you are leery of adding sulfur, you could
mix about 3 inches of peat moss into the top 3 inches of soil. The peat
moss is lower pH, so the pH of the top 6 inches would be in between
what it is overall in the bed and the pH of the peat moss.

Tomato plants have the majority of their feeder roots in the surface soil,
so this would make nutrients that are more available at pH 6.5-7.0 easier
for the plant to take up in that portion of the soil where they take up most
of their nutrition.

(You can see here how tomato plant roots develop:
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglib...10137ch26.html
Look particularly at Figure.73. The article also has notes on how disturbed
tap roots, ubiquitous in plants that have been potted up rather than
direct seeded, affects root development in the surface soil.)

[z_willus_d]

Hi Dice. I've been working on my pH for over a month now. We've had nearly constant rain over the past 3 or so weeks, so it's been a good time to try and mix in the soil sulfur and cottonseed meal that I've been using. I think I've got the pH pretty close to dialed in now -- think. The uncertainty factor here is that I don't know how much more affect the latent lime that I added will have nor the affect of the soil sulfur over time. I'm banking on the hope that they can cancel one another out and keep me close to the 6.5 pH that I'm reading in the beds now. I'll have to monitor this closely through the season.

I tend to plant my seedlings quite deep (three-quarters of the stem goes in ground). Hence, the main root ball can be a good foot below the surface, but I fully expect more roots to develop further up along the stem.

Thanks for posting the article, which I am going to enjoy reading through at leisure.

Best to you.
-naysen

[z_willus_d]

I just finished reading the article Dice. There is an incredible amount of information distilled in that somewhat didactic paper. Much of it flies in the face of some common held conventions. For instance, the idea that the tomato vines should be more greatly separated when in planted in rich soil. The comments on pruning were quite concerning to me. Train to one stem and get 6.5lb of fruit, 2 stems gets you 10.5lb, 3- 12.1lb, and go prune-less to get 19.6lb. That's quite a swing. Reason given, the size of the root system has an inverse relationship to the amount of pruning; prune more, get a smaller root system.

And finally, all that they had to say about the ill-effects of transplanting was incredibly insightful. Now I feel better about my 2-hop transplant system: plug->6" pot->ground.

Anyway, thanks for sharing.
-naysen

[dice]

Potting up or direct seeding can depend on your growing conditions,
too. Growing in sand in the midwest, a long taproot can be life or death
for a plant in dry weather. Growing in clay loam or silt loam or in gardens
heavily amended with organic matter, the soil holds water well in the top
couple of feet of the soil profile, so the plants can grow with a shallower,
more branched root system without drought stress.

[z_willus_d]

Good point dice. While there are a lot of good results in the studies published/described in that paper, the "petri dish" they used, so to speak, might not closely match my environment. Just knowing the effect that transplanting has on root development regardless of environment is information new to me. What did they say about knowledge and root of evil? I'll stick with the "...knowing is half the battle" viewpoint on the subject.

Thanks,
Naysen

[dice]

There is another good collection from the same authors,
Root Development of Field Crops. I ran across it wondering
about the root systems of clover and other cover crops:
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglib...010139toc.html

The first few chapters are "soil and roots in general", basically.

[Tracydr]

I thought you might find this interesting.
http://ohioline.osu.edu/agf-fact/0507.html

[z_willus_d]

Thanks for passing that along Tracy. I noted two things: 1) the slow reaction/conversion of sulfur to free H+ ions (so what I measure now isn't what I'll have later in the summer); and (2) this: "If the soil is calcareous (contains free calcium carbonate), additional sulfur will be required to neutralize the free calcium carbonate." I wonder how much of the calcium I might have in the soil from the lime I added?

It will be interesting to follow the progression of my soils pH through the season. I have a good meter, and I kept careful records of how much was added to each 2'x2' square.

-naysen

[z_willus_d]

So the season is getting along and I thought I'd post a quick update on my new raised beds. They're fully planted now, have been for nearly a month. I'm proud at how well they've handled the weeks of rainstorms we had a while back. The heat may prove a different result, as I"ve noticed my cinder blocks seem to be shifting in the dead-heat of the afternoon (up in the nineties). That scares me, but what can I do.

I'm going to try going with all cages this year, at least up in these raised raised beds. I'll post more pics down the road, as these really don't show the full arrangement. I thought I'd throw in a couple of my peppers and my far too closely placed corn stalks. Pic2 is Pruden's Purple, and I believe Pic4 is Stump of the World. I also have a Sungold that now has several small green cherry fruit developing, so it's first.

Enjoy the week.
-naysen