On Sun, 09 Mar 2003 20:07:25 GMT, animaux
wrote:

On Sun, 09 Mar 2003 20:07:25 GMT, in austin.gardening you wrote:

On Sat, 08 Mar 2003 23:52:50 GMT, (Terry Horton) wrote:

On Fri, 07 Mar 2003 14:48:17 GMT, animaux
wrote:

Compost should not be used on soils where phosphorous levels are known
or suspected to be high.

Why?

Compost's chemistry is generally poorly quantified if at all, and its
phosphorous content can be quite high. This is standard Aggie soil
lab recommendation.

I rarely follow aggie instructions, nor do I always trust their methods...being
a land grant University and all.

One aggie pest control seminar I attended should've been titled "How
to Become a Superfund Site". :-) I left with an arm-length list of
chemical pesticides, with hardly a mention of an alternatives.

But there's a sustainable gardening wing at aggieland universities
too. Remember that our Texas Master Gardener and Texas Master
Naturalist programs are out of TAMU. Benny Simpson, Skip Richter,
Jill Nokes to name a few... all Aggies products. The fellow that held
the lecture on high P soils was recommending Sustane (this was
pre-Ladybug :-).

I've been a gardener all my life and nothing has ever been more viable to soil
structure and texture than compost. I'll stick with my own findings.

Whatever works for you.

On the other hand, finally the aggies came to the conclusion all of us organic
gardeners have known for decades that, slow release organic fertilizer is
superior to any and all other forms of synthetic fertilizers. The y don't force
feed and make turf dependant, but they add OM to the soil which feeds organisms
which make available elements which otherwise would be tied up in the soil.

Whether or not this applies to you in Round Rock you'll have to
determine. Organic gardeners (like me) who live on high-moderate P
soils (100ppm or so) can not turn away from the devastating effect on
soil mycorrhizae referred to earlier. Mycorrhizal association is an
_integral part_ of the physiology of most of the plants we grow.

Reducing nutrient input to help grow soil organisms that will extract
those nutrients for you.... organic gardening doesn't get any more
cool than that.