"Billy" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:
"gunner" wrote in message


when you get the chance you might preview another of Dr.
Chalker-Scott's:
http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~Linda%2...al%20Myths_fil
es/Myths/Amendments%204.pdf
or http://tinyurl.com/loc252

Ummmm. I really, really object to her first paragraph, viz:
"the myths surrounding the amendment of soil prior to woody plant
installation are vast and firmly rooted. Soil amendment recommendations
are
found in the “building healthy soil” genre of popular literature and
consist
of sweeping generalizations regarding the benefits and uses of organic
soil
amendments.

That description is in fact itself a myth, or at the very best, it is a
gross generalisation of the views held by organic gardeners.

I don't know anyone who gardens organically who would say that they are
storing fertilisers to prevent them from washing into streams.

she and many others have stated ; "Organic matter is fertilizer and
is composed of the same elements that make up commercial
fertilizers. If it is applied in excess, it will cause pollution
problems just as surely as those commercial fertilizers do."
Lots of eco-
examples on both sides of that issue. perhaps it is an issue of over
application. I find the more pure the substance, the more likely it
can be misapplied/misapplied.

BTW, 100lbs of 10-10-10 will yield 10 lbs of N, ~4.4 lbs of P and ~8.3
lbs of K.
P and K are not elemental in fert labeling, you need to use the atomic
weights.

She's clearly writing about "excess" use of fertiliser and that is why I
have soooo much trouble with her para outlining the 'myth'.

It is far too easy to use chemical fertilisers to excess but for home
gardeners who use manures, they would have to use a tractor to
apply excessive amounts of fertiliser given the limited percentages
of nutrients there is in animal manures.

FarmI, she was talking about landscape gardeners (I think we call them
cloth heads.) who load up the soil with organic material (OM) because
they read on a website that it was the thing to do.

Of course she is! And THAT ideed is central to my point about her first
para!

She was talking in
quantities up to 33% of the soil as OM. For vegetable gardeners of any
size that would require a skip loader, if you amended down 6 inches.

Yes. That is why I made the point about having to use a tractor to overload
a garden with organic nutrients.

She did four article on soil amendments (three of which I found) and I
don't think you would find her exasperation so grating, if you read the
first two, first, just to keep it in context.

No, she would still have grated. Any piece of work of that is presented as
that one is in terms of the Myth and the Reality, and can be read as a stand
alone piece SHOULD make clear in the first para what the hell is going to be
discussed. In neither the title or the Myth section does she make clear
which group of soil amenders she is talking about that only comes to mind as
one wades through the guts of the doco. Loose and sloppy stuff without that
precision.

Mind you, she's not on her own there. It seems that more and more people
with an academic background have limited literacy skills and cannot tell the
difference between a gerund and a split infinitive.


Glad to hear you have a good baker near by. We just got one in our
little town. (The town is small but there are lots of little properties
around because this used to be a summer home area for people from San
Francisco back in the 30s.) I particularly like baguettes, but most
bakers in the area just took to calling their standard loaf a baguette.
Some of them have a tough crust and a chewy interior (anything but
French bread). Others put a plastic bag over them to keep them from
drying out (Oy(. Our new baker is pretty good, but still not quite
there yet with the interior of the bread.

I'm starting to fiddle with baking, just because white flour is so
devoid of nutrients. Anyway, enjoy the rain. It's our turn for some warm
sunshine now ;O)

It's freezing here today and I've got a rug on my knee as I type. I should
get out and do some digging or humping and toting just to get the blood
circulating.