Re: gardenwriters Digest, Vol 123, Issue 21

**"* C* <d*@gmail.com>**

Actually, Jeff, I was the blackguard. The extension agent, with an ag 
background like most, was running around waving a multi-page soil test 
report like a cross before vampires. Here's the situation. We were building 
and installing a Master Gardener demonstration garden, and there were half a 
dozen people scattered around digging. One was digging in clay, one in an 
ancient ash pile, one in gravel, one in macadam broken up and buried decades 
ago, one in the underground remains of a tree stump that must have been cut 
down before I was born. (The diversity is not unlike my own yard.) My 
position was that the soil test was meaningless with such different 
situations, often only a couple of feet apart. No, he said, I took soil from 
several different spots and mixed it together, by the book, so I got an 
average of what the site needs. We happened to be standing near the guy who 
was digging up hundred year old ashes. Fine, I said. What does that average 
tell you about what that spot right there needs?

I knew from the look on his face that I was on my way out.

Duane Campbell
Syndicated garden columnist
Author: Best of Green Space; 30 Years of Composted Columns

-----Original Message----- 
From: Jeff Lowenfels
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 12:15 PM
To: gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [GWL] gardenwriters Digest, Vol 123, Issue 21

> Soil testing tells what you need. There is no other way to really know. 
> Shame on the
coop extension agent who says it is a waste of time! We do Scott's bidding 
when we tell gardeners its a waste as you can just use x-y-z.....and waste 
valuable resources and cause environmental problems...gardeners use 3x as 
much nitrogen as farmers per acre!

teaming

jeff
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