Re: Troubled Soil

Bill, I didn't begin using the purchased compost until two years ago when it
became available.  It is locally made from turkey manure and lots of wood
chips.  I buy it locally from a very fine nursery that uses it to pot up all
their plants.  It is definitely a high grade compost and it has made
enormous improvements in my soil.  Thanks for the suggestion though.
Merri Morgan
Zone 5b, WV
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Blee811@aol.com>
To: <perennials@hort.net>
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 8:55 AM
Subject: 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
>
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