Re: Gypsum (was Seaweed and canine perfumes)

Charles Dills wrote:

>         Be very careful with gypsum. I have heard that after an extended
> use of gypsum one winds up with a "plaster" shelf a couple feet down which
> acts like a tile floor! I have not personally observed this!

Chas
A timely warning , especially to people who add amendments to their
ground without a good reason. I have sometimes questioned the idea of
using large quantities of gypsum in soils other than clays to increase
calcium stocks, and wondered if one could overdo this (well, no doubt
one could create an excess in clays also, but it would take more
material to do so).

The answer seems to be yes, one can.

There is no doubt that in most soils without any evident problems the
safest additions are simply well-matured compost and organic feeding
mulches, which approximate to what nature normally depends on herself.
Any further additions could, in many cases result in either overfeeding
or unbalamce the soil by unnecessarily increasing just one or a few
ingredients. The only extra I normally put in with my compost, (and that
only every three years or so) is a dusting of seaweed powder to ensure
all trace elements are present and correct. This is largely because I
know the natural soil in my area is low on some of these, particularly
boron.

Especially in the vegetable garden many people, even those who think
they garden organically, still  have a "chemical mindset" and believe
they have to put in enough extra food at each planting to "carry the
crop". when all they actually need to do is to ensure the soil
"microherd" is adequately fed and these organisms will then be quite
capable of drawing on the soil's natural (mineral) reserves as necessary
to see the crop gets sufficient.

Of course this only happens as it should when the soil is fully-alive
and getting its proper food in the form of adequate humus (an inch of
made compost a year is an elegant sufficiency for most such soils). One
other thing which usually needs no attention in such a soil is the pH,
which the compost seems to naturally adjust to the vegetation.

Moira



-- 
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata, 
New Zealand (astride the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
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