Re: Troubled Soil

In a message dated 1/9/2004 8:34:47 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
mmorgan@blazingaccess.com writes:

> Each year I have poured into the gardens a fortune in colloidal
> or rock phosphate, dried blood, purchased compost (I could never have made
> enough and what I had went to the vegetable garden), and Planters II, a
> trace mineral supplement.  Strange wilts and blights killed many plants--for
> three years peas withered and died, tomatoes died from what I think was
> verticillium, root crops were stunted and bitter, a planting of vinca minor
> blighted and almost died.  

Merri, your purchased compost may be the villain. I made a new bed a few 
years ago, double-digging, adding lots of mushroom compost. I planted 150 
different daffodil cultivars in this new bed. Come spring, none came up. This is 
unexplainable in terms of any known daffodil disease or pest. Even nematodes would 
not work this fast on an entire bed.

My guess is that the purchased compost was the problem. The horticulturalist 
at Spring Grove Cemetery here in Cincinnati told me that he always has all 
purchased additives tested before he uses them. He had a batch of mushroom 
compost that the lab told him was so full of salts that no plant would survive in 
it.

I left the bed untouched for two years. It now supports a full complement of 
perennials, which have done very well in it.
Bill Lee

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Support hort.net -- join the hort.net fund drive!
http://www.hort.net/funds/
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index