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Old June 20, 2016   #27
loulac
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: France
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrSalvage View Post
we were talking above about a way to pulverize all the shells... . Now in powder form the nutrients would be immediately available for plant uptake. Right?
...I could buy top soil by the yard but i have no way to know whats really in it. It would be hard to say I am organic if I do that. So this is a bit of a challenge for sure.
Bower’s questions in post 22 may not be an answer but have a lot of weight.
I’m not sure plants could make use of the substances found in finely ground shells. It reminds me of the (very) early XXth century when some people drank water from a bottle full of rusting nails, thinking they would enrich their blood with iron. In big quantities it might soften a hard clay soil, just like adding sand, which would be faster.


MrSalvage intends to till “a bunch of rows about 4 ft wide by 100 yds”. Improving the soil significantly may require 5 inches of kelp every year for at least 5 years. Simple math will give an impressive volume…


I quite understand money can be a problem. Buying a truckload of good earth from time to time might be solution if you can contact a building contractor, a digging company that can give the precise origin of the earth it can deliver. Personally I had to buy 9 or 10 trucks of top soil (the upper12 inches) to add a garden to my new home, I knew exactly where the earth came from. I do hope MrSalvage will find a solution, his garden could first be a bit smaller than intended then grow year after year…
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