In article
,
Billy wrote:



Amusing, coming from someone of your limited awareness. If you wake-up
for a moment you will notice that I said "Basic (above pH 7) [soil] is
bitter. You state that "Sweet soil usually conotates alkaline soil,".

I guess I shouldn't blame you for taking your dubious scientific
knowledge from gardening sites.

http://www.gardenterms.com/sweet_soil.htm
Sweet Soil
An old fashioned term used to describe limy soil, that with a high level
of alkaline and a low level of acid. The pH of 4 indicates slightly
alkaline soil and the pH of 6 indicates soil that is very alkaline.

In the real world it goes:

alkaline:
having the properties of an alkali, or containing alkali; having a pH
greater than 7. Often contrasted with acid or acidic ; compare with
basic .

http://dbhs.wvusd.k12.ca.us/webdocs/...roperties.html
Base Property #1. The word "base" has a more complex history (see below)
and its name is not related to taste. All bases taste bitter. Mustard
tastes bitter. Many medicines, cough syrup is one, taste bitter. This is
the reason cough syrups are advertised as having a "great grape taste."
The taste is added in order to cover the bitterness of the active
ingredient in cough syrup.

Billy Goat Gruff at your service. You sure you're not a troll?

My dad taught me to take a hand full of garden soil squeeze it and see
how it broke up. This for early soil preparation if it had been wet.
He also used to take the same soil and taste it. This for getting an
idea if lime was needed. This was 50 years ago.

Bill

Here is a good read concerning soil.


http://www.regional.org.au/au/asssi/...lineskelly.htm


--
Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA
MaCain in 2038 !!

In article , Charlie wrote:

On Sat, 05 Apr 2008 15:42:03 -0400, Bill wrote:


My dad taught me to take a hand full of garden soil squeeze it and see
how it broke up. This for early soil preparation if it had been wet.
He also used to take the same soil and taste it. This for getting an
idea if lime was needed. This was 50 years ago.

Bill

Here is a good read concerning soil.


http://www.regional.org.au/au/asssi/...lineskelly.htm


Thanks Bill. This is an excellant essay. What realized, before I read
the following passage, is the spiritual aspect of our relationship with
the soil:

"In some intuitively perceivable sense, the quest for a deeper
understanding of the soil’s role in the natural environment and in the
life of humanity, is more than an intellectual exercise or a merely
utilitarian task. It might even be something of a spiritual pilgrimage,
impelled by an ancient call, a yearning to return to a life of greater
authenticity."

As I said to Billy, this essay occupied my thoughts for the better part
of the day. Reflecting back over my life, from my earliest memories,
the time I recall being most spiritually barren, were the times I was
away from and uninvolved with the soil.

Also important is this passage:

"Soil is the connection to ourselves. From soil we come and to soil we
return. If we are disconnected from it we are aliens adrift in a
synthetic environment. It is the soil the helps us to understand the
self-limitations of life, its cycles of death and rebirth, the
interdependence of all species. To be at home with the soil is truly
the only way to be at home with ourselves, and therefore the only way
we can be at peace with the environment and all of the earth species
that are part of it. It is, literally, the common ground on which we
all stand. What has happened to our modern industrialised society is
that we have gone through a divorce. We have become divorced from the
soil. And I submit that until we heal that divorce and become lovers of
the soil again, many of our social problems will go unsolved including
our food safety and environmental protection problems. (Kirschenmann
1997)

This essay played in my minds eye as the complete unfolding of the
human experience on this earth.

Thanks for the spiritual uplift and helping me along the way.

Your faithful student :-)
Charlie

I read ideas like this and think of the issue of food quality and how
it effects scholastics and social interaction. Perhaps being grounded
is a health concern on a larger scale.
Of course our rural heritage has had it's share of violence too.
Finding a balance is difficult today all I hope for is a gentle
correction. Read that as slow, small and individual.
Then there is that pesky notion of aging. Seems trivial things get
more attention than 40 years ago when I was too busy living hard.
The word domesticated comes to mind. Which is a challenge that requires
spunk.
So I say live hard and hope others do too.

Your faithful student :-)

Bill

--
Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA
MaCain in 2038 !!

In article , Charlie wrote:

On Sat, 05 Apr 2008 15:42:03 -0400, Bill wrote:


My dad taught me to take a hand full of garden soil squeeze it and see
how it broke up. This for early soil preparation if it had been wet.
He also used to take the same soil and taste it.
This is also a good way to catch hepatitis. That said, geologist, aware
of the previous caution, rub wet soil on their gums to get an idea of
soil composition. If the soil feels very grainy, it is sandy, if it
feels gritty it is silty, if it feels smooth, it is clay-y(?).
This for getting an
idea if lime was needed. This was 50 years ago.

Bill

Here is a good read concerning soil.


http://www.regional.org.au/au/asssi/...lineskelly.htm


Thanks Bill. This is an excellant essay. What realized, before I read
the following passage, is the spiritual aspect of our relationship with
the soil:

"In some intuitively perceivable sense, the quest for a deeper
understanding of the soil’s role in the natural environment and in the
life of humanity, is more than an intellectual exercise or a merely
utilitarian task. It might even be something of a spiritual pilgrimage,
impelled by an ancient call, a yearning to return to a life of greater
authenticity."

As I said to Billy, this essay occupied my thoughts for the better part
of the day. Reflecting back over my life, from my earliest memories,
the time I recall being most spiritually barren, were the times I was
away from and uninvolved with the soil.

Also important is this passage:

"Soil is the connection to ourselves. From soil we come and to soil we
return. If we are disconnected from it we are aliens adrift in a
synthetic environment. It is the soil the helps us to understand the
self-limitations of life, its cycles of death and rebirth, the
interdependence of all species. To be at home with the soil is truly
the only way to be at home with ourselves, and therefore the only way
we can be at peace with the environment and all of the earth species
that are part of it. It is, literally, the common ground on which we
all stand. What has happened to our modern industrialised society is
that we have gone through a divorce. We have become divorced from the
soil. And I submit that until we heal that divorce and become lovers of
the soil again, many of our social problems will go unsolved including
our food safety and environmental protection problems. (Kirschenmann
1997)

This essay played in my minds eye as the complete unfolding of the
human experience on this earth.

Thanks for the spiritual uplift and helping me along the way.

Your faithful student :-)
Charlie

Uh, fellers, art likes a counter point, just for complexity, if nothin'
else. I believe Bill also came up with:

"The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race"
by Jared Diamond, Prof. UCLA School of Medicine
Discover-May 1987, pp. 64-66
To science we owe dramatic changes in our smug self-image. Astronomy
taught us that our Earth isn't the center of the universe but merely one
of billions of heavenly bodies. From biology we learned that we weren't
specially created by God but evolved along with millions of other
species. Now archaeology is demolishing another sacred belief: that
human history over the past million years has been a long tale of
progress. In particular, recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of
agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was
in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With
agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and
despotism,that curse our existence. . . .

http://www.environnement.ens.fr/pers..._jared_diamond
..pdf

Jerod Diamond handles man's treatment of the land in a more nuts and
bolts fashion than does Rebecca Lines-Kelly's archetypal-cultural
approach, but they end-up at the same spot (don't cha just lov it?).
Deforestation leads to loss of rain (quantity) and clean water
(quality), habitat for ecosystem and free food for man, loss of top soil
and it attendant loss of productivity and ability to support life.

Jerod Diamond makes a marked comparison between Australia and Japan.
(Bye the by, independently, Japan and Germany began Forestry as a
science back in the early 1800's.) Australia, which has had its' own
desertification expanded by human activity, pays subsidies for
harvesting trees in Tasmania, and I believe elsewhere, which are then
sent to Japan to be used to make paper. Japan on the other hand, noted
problems with its' forest in the Nineteenth Century, and is today 70%
covered with forests. A country the size of Montana with half the
population of the United States.

It all comes back to sustainability. If you mine your trees, you end up
with Easter Island, the loss of precious top soil in Greenland, or the
ex-forests of arid north Africa. Farming with petroleum isn't
sustainable for many reasons but the main one is that the petroleum is
mined. Once it is gone, it will effectively be gone for good.
--

Billy

Impeach Pelosi, Bush & Cheney to the Hague
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/

bruceh wrote:
My father has a couple of old (Japanese?) pine trees, each
about 8 feet tall in which the needles are browning.
He says that he only waters the trees and has never used
any fertilizer.

Is there any fertilizer/additive that can help with
these trees?

I finally got a chance to take some photos. I don't know
if it would help with any opinions.

The first two photos were taken in Oct. 2007. The last
four are from Apr, 2008.

http://bhatasub5.home.att.net/photoD...Tree/index.htm

TIA

"bruceh" wrote in message
...
bruceh wrote:
My father has a couple of old (Japanese?) pine trees, each
about 8 feet tall in which the needles are browning.
He says that he only waters the trees and has never used
any fertilizer.

Is there any fertilizer/additive that can help with
these trees?

I finally got a chance to take some photos. I don't know
if it would help with any opinions.

The first two photos were taken in Oct. 2007. The last
four are from Apr, 2008.

http://bhatasub5.home.att.net/photoD...Tree/index.htm

TIA


Hard to tell, but, it looks to be typical drought response, particularly
with the candling showing now. The base of the tree looks to be compacted
urban soil, and possibly restricted by concrete. Could be the trees have
reached the limit of the soil moisture capacity, and cut back on
transpiration trying to stay alive.