Re: soil make-up
- To: <pumpkins@mallorn.com>
- Subject: Re: soil make-up
- From: "* C* <m*@neo.lrun.com>
- Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 09:50:53 -0500
Dear Joe:
No secrets to good soil make-up. Contact your local agricultural
extension office and ask them to send you a soil test kit. Follow their
easy to understand directions and mail off a sample of your garden soil.
They will send you back the test results which will (should) tell you in
plain english what you need to bring your soil fertility to 100%. Follow
their directions and you will start the season in the top ten percent of
all giant pumpkin growers.
Do it now before they get real busy. Sending a sample in March and April
- their busiest months - could take many weeks, to many weeks. Soil Test
Kits are different for every state but average between $10 and $15. The
best money spent in the garden all year.
As I've rarely seen a question or comment on this list concerning a
grower's test results, my quess is few ever bother. Instead they trust
their instincts, or get good (free) advice as to what they should add to
their soil, etc. from someone 2,000 miles away, who has never seen their
patch. If everyone on this list did a tests, the lines would be jammed
with mail discribing their top notch soil. If growers competed in the soil
test, like they do at the end of the season, the over all cumulative weight
of pumpkins on this list would quadruple.
Do not add line to your patch unless the test results say you should.
Screw up your ph and no matter how much work and money you spend on
chemical fertilizers, etc. the soil will never be able to release all its
nutrients, or make them available to your plants. Never add line to
compost. The ph of compost will be neutral - unless you compost on top of
high alkaline soils, etc. like some places out west, ie; NV, CA, etc. Lime
your garden if called for by your test, then add your compost to the
garden.
As to your question about growing directly out of compost - that depends
entirely on the quality of your compost and if it is completly finished
composting. If you have doubts about the compost's quality - till it in as
soon as the soil can be worked.
Michael in Akron
mcohill@neo.lrun.com
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