On 2/4/2017 8:16 AM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I read somewhere that when you plant a (bare root) tree that you should
use the same soil that came out of the hole to fill it . The reasoning was
that if you use nice soil when the roots hit the edge of the hole they would
treat it as if it were a planter/pot and just fill the "good soil" with
roots until it is root bound .
I'm wondering if the same principle applies to the veggies I've grown
here . I dig a hole a good bit larger than the root ball/soil in the small
pots I use for seedlings and fill it with a mixture of manure and soil from
the hole when I transplant . We don't have much topsoil here , and in my
inexperience when I first started my garden I think I let a lot of it wash
away (the garden is on a slope) .
I'm amending that now by tilling straw into the soil after using it as a
thick mulch to retard runoff and keep weeds down . But the soil is still
mostly in pretty poor condition so I still dig the holes and fill with an
"enriched" mixture . I just got to wondering , thinking back on the size of
the root balls in past years . Seems like they never get any bigger than the
otiginal hole ...
--
Snag


Once again it sometimes works that way and then it doesn't. Our "soil"
is two inches of sand on top of five feet of Houston gumbo clay. The
hole I had dug to plant the pear tree ended up being eight feet deep and
six feet wide. Hired a crew to do the digging and then they stayed to
help me seat the six foot tall pear. We used a lot of expensive soil
that was heavily amended. Put enough in the hole and then soaked it,
then put more amended soil and watered again. Took three tries to get it
above grade then planted the pear tree. The first year we got a few
pears, the second year we got two bushels. I'm waiting for spring to see
what the third year brings us.

The kumquat tree was planted into the clay layer about two feet, it
still hasn't grown much since it was planted. As soon as spring leaps up
I intend to use an auger and drill holes around the perimeter of the
tree and then amend those holes with citrus fertilizer and some "real"
soil, mostly the compost we've been making. This is in hopes the tree
will grow bigger.

Straw isn't the best thing to use to build soil as, in my opinion, it
takes a longer time to rot and turn into humus. You're probably going to
have to keep up the amending for a goodly amount of time Snag. It takes
a lot of humus to finally get good soil. If you want to keep using straw
I would chop it very small to help rot quicker.

We lived in Saudi Arabia for several years and our yard was pure sand.
We mixed in a lot of camel and donkey poop that was well rotted and
actually bought bags of dirt. After about a year of amending the beds
they become good dirt and our plants and gardens did well.

It's all about amending, amending, and then more amending. Our gardens
in Saudi were amended every week when we pot holed all the vegetable
trash that was going into the composter we made.

George, in chilly SE Texas