Soil test results!

[Tracydr]

Here are the soil test results on my new property.
PH 4.8 and 4.9
Very low (. Iknew that it was low nitrogen,potassium, phosphorous and pH but this is even lower than I expected.
Any recommendations? I could maybe start some favas,clover, and some other cover crop on the area that I will do berries. But, what about the vegetable plot? I always find it difficult when I grow year-round. Perhaps divide the garden into two and do green manure on one half and the winter garden on the other?
I do have available a lot of partially composted pine straw and leaves. All the hardwood chips that I can possibly make, assuming my chipper keeps going. I will have a ton of leaves this fall.
I may be able to gather some manure but probably not real quickly. I do have a couple of bags of lime.
What should I do between now and next spring? I will be mixing in the leaves and pine straw for the veggie garden, along with some purchased fertilizer, since I don't have immediate access to a lot of manure.
I also have a bunch of water weeds which I will be pulling out as soon as we find a small jonboat. Plan is to compost that as well.
pH is 4.9 in vegetable garden site and 4.8 on the berry site
K index is 9
P index is 3 ( K and P are very low, optimum is 50-70.
Nitrogen is pretty low. They recommended 20 lbs per 1,000 square feet.
Obviously I won't put all the recommended lime down at one time. Should I even put any on the blueberries/strawberries? They recommend 80 lbs per 1,000 sq feet for the berries and 75 lbs on the site where I will plant vegetables.
Humic % is 0.27% on the berry garden and 0.41% on the vegetable garden. I suspect this is because the berry site is my new septic field and this was put in about 1 month ago, which means that the soil in the area was turned very deeply, leaving no organic matter in the upper levels.

[drew51]

The PH is perfect for blueberries, don't add any lime where you plant them. Adding compost will up PH around them. But is still will want to stay low. You could use Cottonseed meal and that will feed and leave PH alone. Also Peat moss compost (not peat, but peat compost). will not really raise PH and add some nutrition. For other berries it's a little low. 6.0 is ideal for most berries. Adding ton's of compost should raise it. I would still add a little lime around other berries. Some berries can take lower PH than others. Raspberries and strawberries can take low PH, but that is so low! It needs to be raised.
Lime can take a year to work. Better get that down now for vegetables.
I would probably build raised beds for them, myself.

[Redbaron]

Tracy,
You have apparently a plot of highly degraded "farmed out" land. The best long term advise I can give you is use animals to heal the land. Set up something like Joel Salatin did to heal his hardscrabble farm, but scaled to your size. You might even take a weekend drive up to his farm to talk with him about it personally for some tips.



Short term I agree with Drew. But long term, best way to improve soil health is with animals.

“As the small trickle of results grows into an avalanche — as is now happening overseas — it will soon be realized that the animal is our farming partner and no practice and no knowledge which ignores this fact will contribute anything to human welfare or indeed will have any chance either of usefulness or of survival.” Sir Albert Howard

"When farmers view soil health not as an abstract virtue, but as a real asset, it revolutionizes the way they farm and radically reduces their dependence on inputs to produce food and fiber." -USDA

[drew51]

No animals are allowed where I live. Except the disgusting kind...humans.
Our soil though is very good here. I use raised beds for blueberries to control PH, but everything else can grow without amendments even.
I do have Jesse the wonder dog at least! Alas he is a meat eater. He makes the grass fine, and kills many plants with urine. He did a number on my elderberry bush argh!
I can't use his poop, too unsafe. Oh well.

[Tracydr]

So, I know that this farm hadn't been farmed for at least 30 years, probably more. I saw pictures from when the house was built and it was basically a forest, as it is now.
I do have some ducklings, which will be free range and will hopefully learn to eat snails and slugs. I'm getting chicks ( laying, red broilers and guineas) next week. The guineas will be free range. The broilers and laying chicks will start out in tractors in the garden but eventually, I'd prefer to shut them out of the garden and allow them to roam free. I've seen the damage they can cause when allowed loose in the garden. I will be able to collect the manure, though, as they will be locked up nightly.
I'm chipping hardwood and hauling pine straw ( which is partially composted) along with rotted leaves to the vegetable garden and strawberry bed. As the leaves begin to fall I can add tons more to all areas.
Any recommendation for a cover crop? I was thinking favas, annual rye ( or a grain) and/or white clover. I'd like to get some cover crops going pretty soon, especially on the septic field where blueberries will go. That area was dug out just a month ago and since the soil from several feet under is now on top, it is pretty devoid of organic matter.
Hopefully, I will be able to get cottonseed hull at the feed store.
Recommendations for other,inexpensive organic fertilizer in quantity would be great until I have my horse and chickens where they belong.

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by drew51

No animals are allowed where I live. Except the disgusting kind...humans.
Our soil though is very good here. I use raised beds for blueberries to control PH, but everything else can grow without amendments even.
I do have Jesse the wonder dog at least! Alas he is a meat eater. He makes the grass fine, and kills many plants with urine. He did a number on my elderberry bush argh!
I can't use his poop, too unsafe. Oh well.

Cute! My papillon is the chief fishing dog and the Doberman specializes in hunting lizards and toads.

[Redbaron]

Cute dog! Almost the kind of cute that derives from being so scruffy it is cute!

My dogs help out with rodent control. But I must admit they also occasionally have their "issues" as well. Luckily not the urine "issue" but my dog tries to "help" with the gardening. Last week he "helped" by harvesting a small watermelon. Picked it and brought it to me pretty much undamaged! Unfortunately it wasn't ripe yet!

Oh well, even humans occasionally have difficulty telling when a watermelon is ripe.

Originally Posted by Tracydr

Recommendations for a good, inexpensive organic fertilizer in quantity would be great until I have my horse and chickens where they belong.

You have a forest. So until you can get your animals incorporated into the system, I recommend using leaf mould. That I am sure you can find free for the taking in quantity to "jump start" the garden. Since the soil was already turned up by the installation of the septic system, I would recommend this:

Get some lime and leaf mould and incorporate it into the sand top 2-6 inches with a tiller. Then plant a good summer cover that winter kills like sudan grass, blended with legume and winter hardy covers like winter wheat or rye, alpine peas etc..... You'll need at minimum 4 species, (more is better) a warm season grass and a warm season forb, and a cool season grass and forb. (or 2 or 3 of each) When the summer covers terminate from frost, the winter hardy covers will come in to take over.

Then as you clear areas of downed, diseased and/or otherwise unwanted trees and brush, chip them and pile them up. Next spring I would recommend something like my "Red Baron project", "Lasagna gardening" and/or "Return to Eden" using the wood chips and any leaves you can shred and compost this fall. That should get you by at least temporarily for minimal cost out of pocket until your other long term measures for soil health can kick in. It won't happen over night, but long term you should be good.

There is a plethora of other ways it can be done and even faster, but they start getting very expensive. This way takes a bit longer, but cost is minimal (sweat equity), and long term is better.

[drew51]

Cool Tracy you do have animals to help. Eventually with your plan the soil will recover. Keep the lime away from the blueberries all else it can tolerate with such a low PH.
Jesse is an Australian Shepherd, AKC registered. He has excellent markings. When he was younger he was like a fuzzy bear. His best friend is Axle the pug, my daughter's dog.

I just picked the last of my ripe blueberries. These are Chandler. I want to add Elliot just because it is so late. I'll have berries in September. I grow mostly NHB, but have 4 SHB plants too.

[Tania]

Tracy,

Hardwood ramial wood chips will eventually increase your soil pH. Changing soil pH is a very slow process.

Cheers,
Tatiana

[drew51]

Originally Posted by Tania

Tracy,

Originally Posted by Tania

Hardwood ramial wood chips will eventually increase your soil pH. Changing soil pH is a very slow process.

Cheers,
Tatiana

Even with lime, but that would do the job. they do make fast acting limes for lawns, I think it is Hydrated lime?
Wood chips take at least 2 years to even start touching the PH, and it's like you could add 55 barrels of salt to Lake Michigan, it still will taste fresh. In this case we have lime instead of salt, raised beds man!
When you increase the PH in your garden, Hydrogen will be pulled from surrounding soil back into your garden, good luck! It's not as bad as my example, hydrogen moves slowly, but it's like metal to a magnet, it will be attracted to the bare spot. Every year you will have to fight the PH issue. Hopefully your water is alkaline, most places it is.
Here I fight to lower the PH every year, but it's at a good point, 6.5 to start. I could live with that. Except for blueberries.
Certain leaves can lower PH like Oak.

Luckily feeder roots are in the top few inches of soil, so if you build it up with enough compost, you should be OK.
I just prefer 12 to 18 inches to start (raised bed).

[Tania]

Lime, even fast acting, will only touch the surface layer.

[Tania]

However, I would not hang up on the soil pH (low or high), as I believe that it is not the most important thing for growing edible crops.

If the nutrients are provided for the crops that they need the most, then soil pH is not important.

Soil pH affects the availability of nutrients (see the diagram in the link below)
http://www.superiorminerals.co.nz/pa...erior-Minerals. So the plants that 'love' low or high pH are simply thriving at certain micro-nutrients levels.

For example, blueberries are not 'acid-lovers'. They will grow perfectly well at high pH if you can limit the availability of Ca, which is locked in highly acidic soils. They also prefer N in ammonia form, not in nitrate form as other plants.

[Tracydr]

Thanks, all! I've been hauling lots of forest litter. A mixture of pine straw, hardwood leaves and vermicompost. Tomorrow and this weekend gardening is THE agenda!

[Tania]

We grow sage, asparagus, and blueberries in the same spot. Broccoli and potatoes are also grown side-by-side. They prefer very different pH, but they are all thriving in our garden.

So, I do not get hung up on soil pH, as long as our soil is rich in organic matter.

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by drew51

Cool Tracy you do have animals to help. Eventually with your plan the soil will recover. Keep the lime away from the blueberries all else it can tolerate with such a low PH.
Jesse is an Australian Shepherd, AKC registered. He has excellent markings. When he was younger he was like a fuzzy bear. His best friend is Axle the pug, my daughter's dog.

I just picked the last of my ripe blueberries. These are Chandler. I want to add Elliot just because it is so late. I'll have berries in September. I grow mostly NHB, but have 4 SHB plants too.

One of my goals is to plant fruits that will be ready across the season. Which blueberries do you plant?
Looking to do the same with apples, peaches and plums.
I bought several day-neutral strawberries. Couldn't find any June bearing but will try to find them for the spring.
Now, anybody know where I can get regular and Purple asparagus crowns at this time of year?
One thing I'm really looking forward to trying is our own potatoes. In fact, I'd like to get started in TPS. Our neighborhood produce stand has been doing quite well with various potatoes.
And, of course the sweet potatoes which never did well in AZ for me and which we love to eat, even for breakfast oven fries!