Are there any gardeners on DG?

I visit a lot of garden-related web sites looking for that "perfect home." Me thinks Dave's is a good site but awfully light on some gardening basics, namely soil management. Maybe I'm prejudiced by my perspective as an organic gardener and farmer and my background in soil science and ecology. Maybe gardeners visiting the DG are already very knowledgeable about soil chemistry and biology and about making and using different composts and compost teas. Or maybe they are here just to Chat. ;>)

Nearly all garden problems begin in the soil. There is more life in the world's soils than over the land. Think mushrooms: most of the fungus exists as perhaps miles of mycellium threads from which pops a few mushrooms (fruiting bodies.) Maybe we ought to feed and nurture that majority too.

Our food and flowering plants can be grown hydroponically in inert media, but in living soil the plants enter into complex and everfluctuating relationships with microbes, worms, fungi, other plant roots, mineral or organic particles and compounds, etc.

How I manage the soil may either enhance or diminish my plants' successes. Like many gardeners going back to some of the earliest written accounts, I learned that adding copious amounts of quality organic material to the soil increases the "tilth" (old Anglo-Saxon word) of the soil. Having good tilth means the gardener can expect a good crop. Having good tilth means the plants are vigorous and less attractive to pests and diseases. Having good tilth means the plants can tolerate better any excessive rains or drought.

Good tilth is not bought in a bottle or bag from the local big box store.

I cannot say that I know alot about soil management but I respect someone with your level of knowledge. I am trying to learn as much as I can and I am 100% organic. I have only had a house for two years but we are making good strides towards accomplishing our goals. I built a large compost station and compost everything that I can. I even have a kitchen composter for material to add to the large compost. I live on the water and harvest kelp and seaweeds to add to the mix. I also use varying manures and also manure teas. I have recently come to the conclusion that your soil and its health are everything when it comes to gardening. I would appreciate any recommendations you could give me on how to increase my knowledge on this subject (advice, books to read, etc.). Please don't get frustrated, we need people with your skills here!

Carrigan,

Sounds like you have a good plan going at your home and a good attitude about the value of good soil management. Gardeners don't need a lot of book learnin', lot of intuitive common sense works pretty well. Just tuck in a little extra for your microherd once in a while.

I might come up with a list of resources and post to a journal or other location: books, pamphlets, articles, web sites, suppliers/catalogs; stuff like that.

Anyone out there want to help with submissions?

Marsh thanks for your excellent thread! Someone who also appreciated the importance of 'good soil' back in England was a great gardener by the name of Percy Thrower. His famous line, "the answer lies in the soil" was renowned all over England. You have already given me some good advice regarding this dreadful red clay soil that I have been blessed with :-) However, I was reading the National Arboretum book and even though the advise given was to improve soil conditions for each particular shrub or tree, the text went on to say that native plants in particular grow best in soil that has not been improved. Sure they take a while to get going but when they do they are strong and virtually disease free. I would like to hear your views on this!

Louisa,

Thanks you for the kind words. I have heard Mr. Thrower's line, but never attributed to him. We say: feed the soil and the soil will feed the plants. Over the past decade on this side of the Pond we have gotten away from pampering all transplants as well.

Many perennials, particularly those considered natives or well adapted to circumstance, do not need heavily amended soil nor special care in backfill materials. In my semiarid region, we landscape with many perennials from moister climates so that some soil amendment might be helpful for the transplant's establishment. But then there are the perennials requiring special soil conditions, such as lower pH or excessive drainage.

Annuals and biennials are another matter. Yes, there are some that thrive in poor to average soil, even sulking if conditions are too nice. Lots of old fashion garden standards and "wild flowers" share that easy-going attitude.

Most annual and nearly all vegetables do best with well amended soils of good nutrient and moisture content with good drainage. Many of these are cultivars long removed from wild progenitors and not very competitive in the absence of good management.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Marsh once again :-) I have been gardening for longer than I care to remember!! Have always improved the soil conditions somewhat but not too much since I always gardened on alkaline soil. The only thing I did at planting was to add some peat and bone meal. The no fuss comments from the arboretum regarding native plants intrigued me. I am going to give it a try. I have many seedlings popping up everywhere and will transplant straight into the clay and see how they fare. This is a total experiment which I will probably find fascinating. Maybe I will just start a small island bed for this project. I will let you know how I get on!!

Mulch, mulch, mulch, mulch (but not up against the trunk/central stem). And you can start a sheet composting sytem/lasagna bed over future planting beds. After a year or less, just plant in the composted material.

It's funny, Marsh but I have a lot of people ask me why my garden produces so much and why I have very few problems with pests. They are always so sure that I have some kind of secret recipe for fertilizer or something of that nature. What is my secret? Good soil that's what. Hopefully this good soil of mine will help me save some of my garden after this deluge of rain I've just experienced and am still experiencing. I'm hearing some thunder at the moment and more rain is on the way. I won't know the total damge until things dry out a bit _if_ it ever does dry out. (sigh)

Rains of biblical proportions, right, Pete2; have you been naughty?

You are so right about the bountifulness of good living soil, so giving and so resilient. The problem with any soil that is saturated from more than a half day is the anaerobic conditions set up within the soil. That's where pathogens get hold of our plants.

Someone once told me that tomatoes will start to fail after as little as 6 hours of saturated soil. So pray some and get ready to work some air into the soil when dry enough.

Marsh

Yup, I've been _very_ bad apparently and it looks like I may have to build an ark pretty soon. ;-)

Soilk has been ignored by agriculture ever since science got into the act. Most growers look at soil as a substrate to hold roots. they do not realize that the soil is alive, teeming with trillions of critters. They do not realize that when we use compost (or other amendments) we are feeding the soil NOT the plants. It is the critters and fungii in the soil that feeds the plants, not fertilizers.

Synthetic fertizers actually kill off the soil flora and fauna but are concentrated enough for roots to take up the chemicals and survive. Conventional (no-till) farmers are just now recognizing that the presence of earth worms is a good thing.Maybe one day they will realize there is more to soil than dirt.And maybe they will realize that most of the insects, soil organisms etc. are beneficial, instead of assuming all are pests and should be destroyed.

These soils, because of all the petro chemicals and compaction from large machinery are pretty much sterile, very very different than the soils on a well manage organic farm or a wild area (woods or grasslands). They are very out of balance so pests insects and diseases come in easily. The normal solution is to use more synthetics to "take care" of the situation which ends up killing more soil organisms (among other things) and making things worse.

I agree wholeheartedly with you, Lucy, but I think that at least researchers have some clues but prefer to go the synthetic way for reasons of economics (their jobs, particularly.) Having all that biological activity means that our crops must also share resources, even stand in line. The modern crop varieties have not been bred to dominate in competition.

One interesting sidelinte of solarization is the immediate availability of Nitrogen following the process which also offers immediate relief from competing and predating soil organisms.

Result: superior crop performances.

Solarization?

Oops, never mind, I just saw the thread on solarization.

This message was edited Wednesday, Jul 25th 11:55 AM

I don't have the papers that Marsh has but over 50 years
of growing, Some of each type. I back that one up with a big chunk of granite.

Nothing better than the way it was done for millions of years. Mulch and organic materials, The deeper the better.

Byron

Hey, another Granite Head, Byron. How the heck are you? How's it growing?

Lot of people can't wait for normal soil improvements. Me? My back yard has been managed with organic material, weedwhacker, and clippers for 16 years and no other amendments for 9 years (when I planted some berries and fruit trees.) Yard looks good, lots of fruit and roses going nuts and the nuts going rosy. LOLOL!

Hey - it's not a matter of impatience. It's a matter of a new garden at my age and have not got all the time in the world anymore...lol!! Now you guys have probably lived in your present house for years and years and I envy you. My life has been that of a nomad!! So whilst I am enjoying my first 'real' American garden, I do have challenges in the soil but also the urgent need to get all my plants into the ground before they give up. I brought nearly 300 potted plants with me from my last house and that was a year ago now!! And it's not 'just clay soil'!! It's 'builder compacted' clay soil - know what I mean!!! :-). I enjoy your comments - keep em coming!

Louisa,

I wasn't referring to you about being impatient! And NOW you tell us that you have 500 "babies" sitting on your doorstep. [grin] And NOW you tell us that the site is mechanically compacted clay. If you cannot physically loosen the clay (and add well composted organic materials), you might have to build raised beds of better soil for some of the less tough plants. Expect many perennials to sit around pouting over their tight "footwear" in the original material. Compacted soil is a bear. Good luck.

Hey Marsh

Add this to your Yankee Vocab.

"Loam wasn't built in a day."

Been addiing sh-t here for a tad over thuthy year.

Add weeds, leaves, all undiseased garden waste, veggie
kitchen scraps, grass clippings, Anything that grew.

If I ever have to start over, 1st year I will dig down 2ft
add 2 in layers of some sort of mulch/manure and let it rot
for a year.

I am all OG material in the soil, No bugs or diseases.

I killed 2 aphids this year and maybe a dz JB's.

Dragonflies are back munching everything that moves.

Been cold here, about 12 degrees below normal.
Only 3 days about 90. Peppers and Maters don't like it.

A-C on 1 time this year.

Rains enough most every week.

Byron

I know lots of spacy folks from CA, but could you use a little less empty space. Thanks

How did that space happen on my last post? (See, I figured you weren't talking about holes in my head!)

You are about to get a massive heat wave (don't know how far north) from the combining of the big heat wave in the central Plains and the Bermuda High holding it all in.

I discovered the many values of any kind of organic material on two occasions that stick in my mind. I probably have repeated them on this or other fora but it's good to remind me to repeat again.

I had my front yard/near-cliff terraced about 8 years ago and the contractor hauled off the excellent topsoil for replacing on the new terraces. Well he "dumped" it somewhere else (likely his yard) and I was left with compacted and stiff reddish clay. Couldn't put a shovel into it. So for months I had my crews dump all the leaves, finer trimmings, shredded tree materials, grass clippings, bad fruit, weeds...

Come spring, crows buried seeds from a neighbor's bird feeder filled with squash, cuke, and melon seeds. These germinated in the partially rotted mulch and covered the whole hillside, much to the amazement of the neighbors and passerbys. So I even got some good eating out of the crows' efforts. By late fall the soil was alive with worms and roots and nice and friable.

I'll get back to you for the rest of the story...

Hey Marsh - I like that one!! The hills are alive with Marsh's veggies!!! LOL! Wow - talk about no effort gardening. Byron - enjoyed your post. Love the - killed 2 aphids this year - in my dreams!!! The builders also took my good topsoil - probably sold it - and left me with - well you know what! Has anyone ever used spent mushroom compost? It's wonderful stuff!

Lousia,

My builders left me 1 in of loam,

For about 7 years I worked with a pick ax, shovel, a strainer on a wheel barrow. I seprated rocks from subsoil.

Added manure to the subsoil.

I now have 2ft deep of a great loam.


BTW Marsh Remember Parsnips? Mine now grow 20 to 24 in long about 4 to 4 1/2" dia on the top.

Byron

Byron, sounds like you have that old time VT variety...I forget its name but its carried by Pinetree Seed and maybe Johnnys.

Byron thanks for your interest in my 'dilemma'!! We cheated my hubbie and I. We hired the gardener who did the grass seeding and soil grading for the builders - a really nice, honest guy - and had him remove 2 feet of clay from the front beds. I had him bring in top soil, compost and manure and he tilled it all in. Now, we did not break up the rock and subsoil down below, so I'm hoping that this new soil will do the trick. We would have worked at it ourselves but all those plants needed a home and quick. Not that they are all in those two beds!! I have many to plant yet. So little by little we are trying to do what the gardener did and by adding compost every year I hope it does the trick. If my plants and shrubs start to die I will be here crying....lol!!!

Marshseed, I am waiting eagerly for the rest of the story... ;o)

JanetR, thanks for reminding me...

Last time I told my story about "sheet composting" similar to the Ruth Stout method I saw discussed on an earlier thread.

My other soil building experience was on a piece of the same clay some mile and half from my house. The owner of the property ran street-corner flower stands all over the city so had no time for his own place The house had been built into a cut on the hillside so all the top soil was long gone and drainage was a problem. We landscaped the property putting in retaining walls, special drainage systems and so on. But we were left with about 3000 sq ft of impossible soil, impossible to even grow lawn.

The fellow had originally hired me to install flower fields on leased ground around the valley. So when he suggested just putting plastic down and cover the area with gravel, I countered with an offer he couldn't refuse: An French-intensive cutflower garden which if unsuccessful would not cost him a thing.

Some years ago (well a lot of years ago) I read about an old Irish system common to the blue clay areas and an ancient art. The principle is a bit like John Jeavons' biointensive double dug beds but the beds we created differed.

We dug trenches to 3-4 feet down and as wide as the bed (4 feet). With digging bars we loosened up the bottoms and scarred the sides. Then we tossed in straw and weeds well stomped down until we had added about 1.5-2 feet of coarse organic material (not too woody). Then we backfilled with the original soil while adding a scattering of straw as we went. With the last foot of backfill we mixed organic fertilizers and finished compost to create a "top soil" of about 20% organic content. Each bed was enclosed in a 1-foot high retaining wall, so the beds had better drainage as well as improved soil.

The beds were watered well and a green cover crop (Optional) of buckwheat and weeds were allowed to grow to about a foot or a little more; then turned under by hand and the beds rewatered. After about 4 weeks we came back and planted about 2200 square feet of beds with commercial cut flowers and mulched the beds.

The job cost me $4,800. At the end of the season the man paid me $5,000 because he had harvested flowers worth wholesale at around $8 per square foot of bed. The beds continued to yield well for 3 years with few inputs but always mulching.

The cut flowers, normally taller than their landscape relatives, grew half again to twice their normal sizes with flower of exceptional size and quality.

So the lessons for today: deep digging works, amended clay with constant surface mulching works, the deep Irish buried organic material works (at least in the two times I've done them.) The number of worms in those beds, worms formerly hiding out elsewhere, was enormous and probably was important in altering the buried organic materials to food for roots and associated microrrizal fungi.

End of story.

*****clap-clap-clapping******* Well done Marsh, loved the story, loved the methods you used and loved the fact that you are not frightened of hard work. Congratulations on a job well done. When are you coming to Virginia....lol!! I double dug all my beds in England but then I did have sandy, alkaline soil!

Louisa,

I WAS a LOT younger than and had even younger help. Thanks for the applause. I actually finished doubledigging a bed today for horseradish plantings (Yes, I know, a little late.)

PS, most in situ clay soil with typical profile of topsoil do not need double diggings if drainage and aeration are good.

Wow! These are great, back-from-the-dead stories.

On a much more modest level, I am trying to amend my little town-house beds by stirring in some peat moss every time I make a hole, either to remove or add a plant. Will be mulching with compost and probably leaves for overwintering. I'm dealing with heavy soil here.

Took a small pile of garden clippings today and buried them in an unused spot. I can't do any real composting in my tiny yard, but I sure hate to throw out stuff like that. But I'm thinking I might do better to pull everything out of the bed and dig down at least a foot adding peat moss and then replant my perennials. I suppose spring would be the best time to do this in the Frozen North (she said, sweating profusely in the summer heat).

Janet,

Peat moss is not particularly valuable...no nutrients, absorbs and holds lots of water or dries out and hard to rewet. Better to add well composted materials or add green stuff in unused sections, as you say your doing.

In my yard I have compost bins and an area I call my worm garden which I bury kitchen scraps and those strange fungal things I keep finding in my refrig. LOL!

Janet

You can compost in a garbage bag. (not- Martha approved)
Poke some holes in bottom and top of the bag..

Burying is better, because it rots faster.

Peat moss. I had some that was so acidic it killed my plants.

Best deal is start watching the "Big Box" stores for their year end sales, Grab the bagged compost, potting soil or composted manure for 50 cents to $1 a bag.

Byron

Thanks for all the advice. Glad to hear that burying my compost-to-be is a good way to go. (And that way hubby's sensitive nose doesn't get offended!) Finding enough unused spaces is going to be the challenge! ;o) With all the cats in the neighbourhood (including mine) I find the best way to discourage them is to leave very little uncovered dirt. I am now resorting to sticking potted plants in bare spots, which works pretty well.

I debated about variations of the garbage bag method (I was thinking of punching holes in a plastic garbage can), but our yard is really tiny and I figured it wouldn't smell too great.

So peat moss isn't such a great deal then? I know it's a pretty crumby mulch, but I thought it would be good to improve the texture of the soil when I stirred it in below the surface. Actually, I've been using a potting mix that includes some lime to keep from increasing the acidity. This part of the country is forest in its natural state, so I figured the soil had to be acid enough already.

Thanks for the "Big Box" tip - I'll look out for that.

For me, it's ALWAYS been about the soil itself! haha! I lovingly double-dug every inch of my huge borders & have an intimate relationship with the insects & rocks & feel of my soil. I keep 3 composting bins in various stages of decomposition going, besides the vermicompost habitat that my 1000 wormies live in under my kitchen sink. As an organic gardener, good soil is my best defense. Over the years my soil has steadily improved as I encircle each plant with my chunky compost each spring & fall & let the earthworms carry it down to the roots. The only DOWN side of my wonderful soil is that plants get so much TALLER than the books say they will. But I have very strong plants that ward off most diseases & the time invested in turning poor soil into good soil is the best-spent time a gardener can have. You're preaching to the choir here! :)

Welcome, lindap!

Soil huggers, sniffers, tasters, and diggers are always welcomed.

Marsh

By request, bringing back up this thread :)

Surely some new soil-lovers (aka gardeners) have joined us since last we saw this one. Don't be shy!

WHAT A GREAT THREAD! THANK YOU FOR THE REVIVAL!

I have been so concerned with the soil in my yard lately that I wasn't even conscious of it. I'm trying to do all the right things at once. Leaf mold bin started, compost bin in the works, a friend of mine is training me on how to raise earthworms indoors. Just this morning I was feeling sad for all the earthworms I've found that drowned in last night's rain and are drying out on the sidewalk.

I'm going to visit a local prarie and study the plants there this weekend. We have so many prarie plants that have roots three feet deep into the soil. Yesterday I learned that one third of the roots to these grasses, which penetrate the earth three feet deep, dies off and is regrown annually. So in three years, the soil all around these roots is basically renewed, and that all this compost happens THREE FEET DEEP for hundreds of acres, naturally! The more I learn about the land where I live, the more I can live without the skyscrapers out my front window.

I say make every day "Earth Day"!

This is fabulous! I'm so excited, I must be in Heaven!

I know they say, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" but everywhere I look I want to see dirt!

I'm a firm believer in organic gardening and have practised this method for some 30 years. Of course good soil is always foremost ...AMEN(D) amend, amend, amend.

Three years ago I started vermicomposting. I will never go back to regular composting again. Nothing better than compost with manure too...2 for the price of one. I have perennial poppies that grow over 5 feet tall and everything around is HUGE and healthy.

My worms are now caffeine free enjoying luxury herbal tea leaves and decaffinated coffee grounds and they don't seem to mind it at all. LOL

This was pretty interesting..., but I can see why some folks might have been put off by the title. The underlying content is REALLY interesting.

What a great thread. I am fanatic about my soil, started out with red clay soil where weeds refused to grow, and now it's so beautiful and deep. Today I put a "ton" of rabbit droppings on all the beds, worked it in a little bit, added some compost and topped it off with shredded leaves. Now it can sit there until spring. For the first time in 165 days, we're supposed to get some rain tonight, and snow Saturday. I guess I got this little task done just in time.
Near by, we have a rabbitry where I buy rabbit "stuff", and the gal that owns it also raises worms and sells castings for 3.00 a cubic foot. A great price! Maybe one of you can give me some advice about the castings ---- I have a garbage can full of them, should I just keep them there until I need them this spring, or should I work them into the soil now? I always add some to the soil when I plant, but I got a little carried away last ime I went to her place.Would love to have an answer.
Jacquie

Squareroot: I don't know for sure if this is true but--- the gal I buy castings and worms from told me that worms don't drown, they don't have lungs. And, they come to the surface of the soil to mate. Very interesting.