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Dragon Tales - The Final Chapter

On this first day of spring, as the ground slowly warms in my garden - I start getting irresistible urges to just plant something.  I find myself staring intently at my huge pile of pumpkin seeds hoping that the silver bullet will just jump out at me.

I know there's a couple of them lurking in the pile, but they're trying not to draw attention to themselves.  They certainly are not going to jump up and wave their little cotyledons at me until I get my soil fixed.

I finally did a soil test this winter and the results were a bit of a shock.  Ph at 7.6, nitrogen and phos way low and off the charts in magnesium.  Now I know how foolish I've been tossing amendments into my soil without a clue.  I don't know how many bags of Ironite I've blithely tossed into the plots over the years.  Ironite is 1% magnesium - just what I don't need.  No wonder the dragon Calai plant last year was always in such a foul mood.

A bit of advice - If you haven't done a soil test, go get one before you piss off your pumpkins.


my kids like the big orange ones - so does their dad

I finally finished the last chapter of my grower's log for last year.  Just looking at pictures of those big orange gourds helps get my blood sugar up enough to go tackle my hard pan.  If you need assistance in getting your green thumb ambulatory, this might help.  My final grower's log can be found at:

http://home.pacbell.net/diana_do/saga12.htm

This page takes a while to load if you are bandwidth challenged, but is worth waiting for and have your sound card on.

By the way, I've got my gypsum and soil sulfur already in the ground - You Napa guys better watch out this year!!

vince
best 831, 2001
zone 9, the pumpkin zone

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