Help-do-over?

[Tracydr]

This fall I added a bunch of the local landscaping companies "raised bed mixture" to top off my gardens because they were nearly empty. I had really good spring gardens using nearly 100% pure composted horse manure but the compost had shrunk to 25% it's original amount.
I failed to mix the new dirt with the old compost but it was supposed to be 25% compost so I wasn't that worried about it. I did add my usual gypsum and bone meal as I filled the beds and prepared to plant.
Nearly two months ago I planted lettuce, radishes and brassicas, peas, nastaturtiums,along with celery. The celery is doing ok, at least a couple of plants are. Nastituriums and peas are doing well.
Everything else is barely growing, some don't even have true leaves yet.
Nitrogen deficiency, since the peas and nasties are doing well? I've started watering with a "chicken poop tea" the last two weeks and the radishes and lettuces are starting to grow some.
Would I be better off hauling a few tons of my own horse manure in right now, pulling some of this dirt off ( I do have a couple more beds that I can use it in as part of a mix, I still have two more huge beds to fill) and just starting my greens over? I've wasted two months with nothing to show at this point. Or, would I be better to just start fertilizing with fish emulision and just wait until after the greens/brassicas are done to redo these two gardens?
My manure is about 15 miles away but I have an unlimited amount of it. It's just a hassle since I have a small trailer and I'm a somewhat disabled person. I try to do a little at a time. I do need to get my paddocks cleaned so I need to get the manure hauled one of these days, anyway.

[fortyonenorth]

Hard to say. You say the landscape mix was 25% compost - what made up the remainder? A lot of raised bed mixes that I've seen have a lot of bark. Depending on the type and quality, the bark could be causing nitrogen tie-ups. If I were in your position, I'd get a quick soil test. Something's amiss and it's impossible to know without a test.

[Tracydr]

Well, it looks like its mostly clay. I suspect a high salt content and high pH if it's anything like the rest of AZ. It's sort of a fine textured reddish clay without the best drainage, although that could be a good thing because last summer my drainage was almost too good and it was very difficult to keep my garden water, I would water and it was running straight out the bottom. Now I just need a happy medium.
It appears to have far less than 25% compost despite what was advertised.

[dice]

The easy answer: shovel a bunch of it out, refill most of the way with
horse manure, cover with an inch of the not-so-great topsoil mix, and
plant in it.

After the crop is harvested you can work it further (add something
like rice hulls to it to maintain drainage, for example; grow a cover
crop like buckwheat in it to build up organic matter; scatter a bale of
alfalfa over it and turn it in; add more horse manure and bedding; etc).

Not as precise as a soil test and making adjustments to bring up
anything that it shows as deficient, but it will probably work ok.

[SEAMSFASTER]

Originally Posted by Tracydr

Well, it looks like its mostly clay. I suspect a high salt content and high pH if it's anything like the rest of AZ. It's sort of a fine textured reddish clay without the best drainage, although that could be a good thing because last summer my drainage was almost too good and it was very difficult to keep my garden water, I would water and it was running straight out the bottom. Now I just need a happy medium.
It appears to have far less than 25% compost despite what was advertised.

I'm working on a concoction for growing tomatoes in raised beds with 12 ingredients. I just got the results of a soil test back and was quite surprised to get an ECe (salinity level) of 13.8! This is about 7 times the level that tomatoes like.

I read up a bit on manures and such. Fresh horse manure can have 5-10% salts. Additionally, the N ratio is generally in the 1:1 range, whereas plants need it in the 4:1 range. And it turns out that the N levels are not as high as I had assumed either. So if you do add more manure, make sure you leach out the salts thoroughly before planting. Even composted manure may still be high in salts in your dry climate.

I also concur - wood shavings, bedding straw and partially composted yard debris can all rob your soil of nitrogen. Brassicus plants (brocolli at least) are heavy N feeders, so I think some fish emulsion should give them a jump start. I've had good success with including seaweed extract with fish emulsion applications. Blood meal and cottonseed meal are a couple of other amendments to consider for slower (cottonseed meal especially) release of nitrogen.

If it were me, I would just give up on what you have planted in the beds - perhaps dig up the best looking plants (not the peas, of course) and put them aside in pots for a few days until you can get the beds in good shape and just compost the more severely stunted plants.

I like the suggestion of a cover crop as well, though where you're at I think this is the prime growing season for cool weather crops.

I think a simple soil test would be well worth it. Here in Utah (some of the same issues with heavy, alkaline clay), you can get a pH+salinity test conducted for just $4.50 (PM me if you want contact info.). I'm thinking some peat moss would do wonders for water retention, soil acidification and increasing organic matter.

[dice]

This research summary from Colorodo State University on the use
of rice hulls found that rice hulls increased the soil pH (compared to
a peat-sand-soil mix), but it did not say how much. Retained salts were
less after the crop was harvested in media modified with rice hulls:
http://ghadvisor.blogspot.com/2011/0...root-zone.html

If you want to use them, you can probably get them at places that sell
horse stall bedding. They break down fairly slowly as far as organic
amendments go, so they are economical from that standpoint (you get
multiple years from one application to a garden or landscape). What
they would do in your clayey topsoil mix is lighten it up, basically (add
air space and drainage, make it easier to work).

The mix is probably heavy in clay simply to hold water better in your
hot climate (especially with a mulch that keeps direct sun off of the
surface of the soil).

[Tracydr]

I'd love to send in my soil for a test but not sure where to send it. When I lived in OK I would send it to the county EX agency but they don't do that here. Anybody know a relatively inexpensive $25 or so, place I can send some soil samples, I'd love to send them.
I can use some rice hulls, they're not hard to get but I'd certainly not want to increase pH and I've noticed in areas where I've placed rice hull mixed chicken manure on the grass it doesn't come back as well as plain chicken manure, leading me to wonder if rice hulls effect the soil poorly, despite retaining moisture. I also tried using some rice hulls as part of a mix for seed starter and nothing would germinate. Maybe pH?
Cover crops are best for me mid-summer, if ar all. Right now I need my space for salad, brassicas and peas if I'm going to replant or try to recover this crop.
I also need to prepare for tomatoes in 6 weeks. I may forget about potatoes or, perhaps do a few in pots.
Interestingly, celery is doing pretty well. I have been watering it with a manure tea, though, made with chicken manure.
I'll give everything that stays some fish emulsion and kelp.

[SEAMSFASTER]

Utah State University Analytical Laboratories has a wide range of options for soil tests. See:

http://www.usual.usu.edu/

From the menu on the left column, click on "Prices", then on "forms"

At this point, I think your most critical parameters are pH and Salinity. The combined test is $4.50. In heavy clay soils with poor drainage, salts tend to accumulate and crust near the surface (sodification), making the soil even less friable. High levels of calcium will likely lead to high pH through the formation of calcium carbonate.

It becomes a vicious cycle of ever increasing salinity and alkalinity. If your soil test does show high salinity, the #1 suggestion they will make is to leach the soil heavily with water. Before that will work, you'll need to make sure the beds have plenty of organic matter so the water can drain on through.

Other methods for combating salinity (specifically high sodium) include: amending with calcium sulfate (gypsum), elemental sulpur, and/or peat moss. I'm guessing you don't want to add anything that might raise the pH any higher.

Good luck!

[dice]

[rice hulls, manure, peat moss]
I was looking to see if rice hulls tended to be salty. I did not find anything
that claims that generally to be true. Using manure year after year in
the same bed can raise salt levels. Like you say, you do not want to raise
pH if the pH is already high.

One possible issue with peat moss in your climate is that one generally
does not want it to dry out completely, because it is slow to re-wet. If
your mulch prevents your beds from ever drying out completely, that
would not be a problem.

This page has a good writeup on using gypsum or calcium chloride
to manage high sodium levels in soils:
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/plantsci...t/sf1087-3.htm
(About halfway down the page.)

[Tracydr]

I do use gypsum on all new beds and usually add some with each new manure addition. I'd use more sulphur but it's gotten pricey? Gypsum is much cheaper so I use it pretty liberally. I'm pretty sure we're quite alkaline here as I see iron deficiency in heat and also whenever we have rare wet spells.
Salt, I'm also sure is a problem, but I do have incredibly cheap flood irrigation at $69 a year for every other week flooding. I also flood my soil when I fill gardens and plant, along with using the gypsum, plus lots of organic material. Mainly I use pine needles plus wood chips from my backyard. I'm composting chicken manure mixed with pine needles to add this year but that hasn't been added in large amounts, yet.
I'm going to send some samples off to the Utah address, what a great price!
I'm sure, with four beds of 16x8x 12 inches deep and several other in-ground beds, that peat moss in any quantity at all would really add up. I have added a bit of cheap perlite but it doesn't go far.
All the organic matter seems to attract some sort of louse, along with sow bugs but I think it's worth it, because it also seems to reduce the pH and everything seems to really grow well n those areas, provided enough manure is used. The only problem with the sow bugs is making sure they don't eat lettuce and other tender greens/bean seedlings. It's certainly better than this soil I hauled in.
So, to sum up, in large enough quantities to actually do anything, I have pure aged horse manure, a pretty good amount of chicken manure, pine straw and wood chips/shreds. (citrus and pine)
I can also add some rotted alfalfa to the mix because I'm due to rake/clean my barn area. Maybe some newspaper shreds, I assume that wouldn't hurt my chipper/shredder?

[dice]

The wood chips/shreds and newspaper would induce bacteria to consume
a lot of nitrogen to digest them. That is probably why you notice right away
if you do not use enough manure (that is your usual nitrogen source).

The pine straw should act to reduce pH.

You might try just cultivating in an inch or two of the chicken manure
and perhaps alfalfa into the top few inches of a couple of square feet
of bed around the plants that are not doing so well in the new
commercial soil. That little bit of extra nitrogen might be all that they
need.

[SEAMSFASTER]

As you mention, iron chlorosis is a fairly reliable indicator that your soil is on the alkaline side.

I might suggest getting your irrigation water tested as well. It's not unusual, at least here in the West, for irrigation water to be very hard and have a high pH, particularly late in the season. Repeatedly flooding with alkaline water would likely offset, to some degree, your efforts to reduce soil pH.

What to do about cheap, alkaline irrigation water is another issue involving more $ (seems that just about everything boils down to that...).

It's claimed in a couple of places that 1" of peat moss tilled into the top 6" of soil can reduce the pH by 1 full point, at least for a year, maybe two. You're right, it can be rather pricey. You would need about four 2.8 ft^3 bags to cover each one of your 16'X8' beds.

Soil test results should give you some guidance about how to proceed as far as rice hulls vs. peat moss vs. Sulphur.

I just sent in a soil sample of my second attempt at getting a good mix for my tomato beds. If the salinity is still >5, I just might give up on the project...

[dice]

NB: If doing the inch of chicken manure cultivated into the top of the soil
test, it should be composted chicken manure (danger of fertilizer burn
with fresh).

A particularly informative document on management of saline, sodic,
or saline-sodic irrigation water and soils:
http://waterquality.montana.edu/docs...odic_faq.shtml

[desertlzbn]

Originally Posted by Tracydr

I do use gypsum on all new beds and usually add some with each new manure addition. I'd use more sulphur but it's gotten pricey? Gypsum is much cheaper so I use it pretty liberally. I'm pretty sure we're quite alkaline here as I see iron deficiency in heat and also whenever we have rare wet spells.
Salt, I'm also sure is a problem, but I do have incredibly cheap flood irrigation at $69 a year for every other week flooding. I also flood my soil when I fill gardens and plant, along with using the gypsum, plus lots of organic material. Mainly I use pine needles plus wood chips from my backyard. I'm composting chicken manure mixed with pine needles to add this year but that hasn't been added in large amounts, yet.
I'm going to send some samples off to the Utah address, what a great price!
I'm sure, with four beds of 16x8x 12 inches deep and several other in-ground beds, that peat moss in any quantity at all would really add up. I have added a bit of cheap perlite but it doesn't go far.
All the organic matter seems to attract some sort of louse, along with sow bugs but I think it's worth it, because it also seems to reduce the pH and everything seems to really grow well n those areas, provided enough manure is used. The only problem with the sow bugs is making sure they don't eat lettuce and other tender greens/bean seedlings. It's certainly better than this soil I hauled in.
So, to sum up, in large enough quantities to actually do anything, I have pure aged horse manure, a pretty good amount of chicken manure, pine straw and wood chips/shreds. (citrus and pine)
I can also add some rotted alfalfa to the mix because I'm due to rake/clean my barn area. Maybe some newspaper shreds, I assume that wouldn't hurt my chipper/shredder?

I am also in AZ and I just read that we should NOT be adding gypsum to the ground, because it is already very gypsum heavy, because of the type of soil it is. I am going to add some sulfur and some 10-10-10 when I till my beds today.
I am hoping I get it right this time. I sure could use a nice crop of tomatoes this year.

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by dice

The easy answer: shovel a bunch of it out, refill most of the way with
horse manure, cover with an inch of the not-so-great topsoil mix, and
plant in it.

After the crop is harvested you can work it further (add something
like rice hulls to it to maintain drainage, for example; grow a cover
crop like buckwheat in it to build up organic matter; scatter a bale of
alfalfa over it and turn it in; add more horse manure and bedding; etc).

Not as precise as a soil test and making adjustments to bring up
anything that it shows as deficient, but it will probably work ok.

Guess what I've been up to?