Thornhill wrote:
simy1 wrote:
It is difficult to diagnose from a distance. Is your soil clay or sand?

Clay

If you don't want to test the soil, two inches of manure will alleviate
whatever you may have. Even if it is a chemical imbalance, it will
buffer it some. It certainly has enough nutrients to get you through a
season without other fertilization. Many vegetables can be planted
through manure after a single good rainfall. Most greens, squashes and
melons, garlic, tomatoes and potatoes, will happily grow in manure that
was laid a month before. Just lay it on top, clear a little space when
you plant, to avoid direct contact with the young plant, and let the
worms pull it in for you.

So it sounds like manure is a good plan. So I just lay it on top of the
soil, I don't work it in?

Thanks.


Top with the manure and also enough gypsum almost to hide the manure.
This will help break up the clay. Then, top with enough bone meal
almost to hide the gypsum. The bone meal supplies phosphorus, which
must be present in the root zone ahead of time because it does not
dissolve and leach through the soil.

Water the gypsum to rinse it into the soil. Then, after the soil is
almost dry (moist but not wet enough to form a sticky clod), rototill to
a depth of at least a foot into the native soil (i.e., with 6 inches of
manure, till down 18 inches -- 6 + 12). In a community garden near my
house, several gardeners will get together to rent a rototiller for a
day, sharing it for all their parcels.

The manure is more for organic matter than for nutrients. If you don't
over-feed, a 6-inch layer tilled into the soil should be good for 2-3
years. You won't have to do any serious tilling until the manure has to
be replaced. Excess nitrogen speeds the decomposition of the manure.
Over-feeding means it might have to be replaced yearly.

Also, over-feeding with nitrogen promotes leaf growth at the expense of
roots, flowers, and fruits. This is okay for lettuce, spinach, cabbage,
basil, and other leaf vegetables. But excess nitrogen inhibits the
production of carrots, raddishes, and other root vegetables; tomatoes,
peppers, beans, peas, and other fruit vegetables; and artichokes,
cauliflower, and other edible flowers.

The gypsum, however, leaches away and needs to be replaced each growing
season. The bone meal does not leach at all; a generous application
before tilling will be good for as long as 5 years. (You can substitute
super-phosphate for the bone meal, but use only half as much. It might
last 10 years in the soil before the plants have exhausted the supply of
phosphorus.)

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean
Sunset Zone: 21 -- interior Santa Monica Mountains with some ocean
influence (USDA 10a, very close to Sunset Zone 19)
Gardening pages at http://www.rossde.com/garden/