Can anyone help me with this soil test report?

[Fur and Feathers]

I need a little help, I'm trying to garden naturally and have approached the local master gardener who seems not so keen on organic gardening and told me to use miracle grow.... I did get a soil test and the Ag Extension Agent sent me my report and told me to spread 10-10-10, add some zinc sulfate, sulfer/gypsum and go with it. Not sure how natural that is. If I liked blueberries these soil sample reports would not be a problem, unfortunately I don't like blueberries that much.

So can anyone bear with me and explain what this means?

ph is 5.0 (note: this is even though we added dolomitic limestone last year).

Phosphorous(P)=Super low, Soil Test Index 5 lbs/Acre
Potassium (K)=Nutrients needed, Soil Test Index 146 lbs/Acre
Calcium(Ca)=Best result I have (still nutrients needed), 346 lbs/Acre
Magnesium(Mg)=Nutrients needed, 93 lbs/ Acre
Zinc(Zn)=low, 2 lbs/Acre

Then there's something about applying borax? "apply 1 tbsp of borax per 100 feet of row to broccoli and root crops..."

"For better fertilizer availability on sandy soils, apply half of the recommended fertilizer just before planting and the remainder when the crop is half grown. In years with unusually heavy rainfall on sandy soils, 3 pounds of 34-0-0 or 2 pounds of 46-0-0 may be added to replace nutrients lost from the soil due to heavy rains."

I guess I thought there would be more explanation than just directions? Thanks so much.

 

[lesa]

Welcome! Welcome! I am afraid those reports are pretty much Greek to me... However, no matter what your soil conditions, you can always amend them and improve with organic materials. This can be compost from your own kitchen scraps, and lawn debris or manure. We are able to buy large amounts of compost from our local town, at very cheap prices. (I do that when starting a new garden and then supplement as I have materials.) Do you have chickens or other livestock? I noticed on my craigslist a few people offering their rabbit and misc barn compost, for free. Personally, I wouldn't do any of those things they recommended... JMO.
Is this your first gardening venture? Let us know where you are and what your conditions and size of your garden are, and we can be of more specific help. Good luck!

 

[Rusty]

Are you kidding? Those reports look pretty darn good to me. I was told how many TONS of lime, etc I needed to apply per acre. If those were my reports, I'd be piling on the compost and going by how well the plants did or did not do. I believe (and someone correct me here if I am wrong) that my Rodale garden book says that to raise the pH one point you add 1 lb of lime per every 100 sq ft. of garden.

HTH

Rusty

edited to add: MY BAD! It's 3-5 lbs lime per every 100 sq. ft.

Also, if you do not have access to compost, you can still use an organic fertilizer. Try Milorganite. I get mine from Home Depot.

Also the amounts in the report are to help you calculate how much to apply. On 10-10-10 for example there is 10% nitrogen or 5 lbs in a 50 lb bag. So if the report says you need to apply 200 lbs per acre, you would need to spread 40 bags to get the correct amount of nitrogen. But you probably know all this.



Good luck with this!

 

[Fur and Feathers]

However, no matter what your soil conditions, you can always amend them and improve with organic materials. This can be compost from your own kitchen scraps, and lawn debris or manure. We are able to buy large amounts of compost from our local town, at very cheap prices. (I do that when starting a new garden and then supplement as I have materials.) Do you have chickens or other livestock? I noticed on my craigslist a few people offering their rabbit and misc barn compost, for free.

Yes we actually have 11 chickens. At the end of the last growing season we added chicken bedding we cleaned out of their pen and tilled it into the ground. We also have several compost piles going, however, our vermicomposting has had a vacancy in the worm department over the winter and I need to go buy more worms.

Personally, I wouldn't do any of those things they recommended... JMO.

Yeah I don't plan to, even though I felt a little bit like they thought I was a freak, however I really don't want to add more chemicals to my food and body than I have to. My husband and I are big believers in you are what your food eats and the soil feeding the plants. Its more economical and sustainable in the long term IOO.

Is this your first gardening venture?

No I'm a repeat offender and this is my third year entering the flora-murder game. I so far have killed 12 seedlings this year and am currently working on 13 & 14. I also need to get my next batch of seedlings started so I have something to transplant come tax day. (our typical first "solid" gardening day around here, usually any chance of frost is nil by then.)

Let us know where you are and what your conditions and size of your garden are, and we can be of more specific help. Good luck!

We are located in Zone 7B - North GA Mountains. I have several garden areas, only two of which I plan on concentrating on this year. One is our herb/kitchen garden which is in slightly better shape than the main vegetable garden. (For example herb garden pH=5.6, and not quite as many nutrient needs.) The herb garden is probably about 50-60 sq feet and right outside my kitchen on the south side of the house.

The vegetable garden is out on a hillside slope overlooking a gravel road (very very lightly travelled; only our family and the family above us use this part of it). The veggie garden also faces south and is actually quite large and I would guess couple thousand square feet, if somewhat narrow. Most of our property is heavily wooded, so we've been clearing little areas here and there trying to grow a few extra food items. We don't have too terrible of a time getting things to sprout, its the keeping them alive and actually getting food that's the hard part.

I love gardening, however, I have a lot to do if I want to keep things natural and I also have a very hilly, very wooded property. On the bright side the veggie area appears to have been a field at some point in the last century or so as it has been pretty well cleared of any field stone.

Are you kidding? Those reports look pretty darn good to me. I was told how many TONS of lime, etc I needed to apply per acre. If those were my reports, I'd be piling on the compost and going by how well the plants did or did not do. I believe (and someone correct me here if I am wrong) that my Rodale garden book says that to raise the pH one point you add 1 lb of lime per every 100 sq ft. of garden.

Okay I'm sorry I think I may have mis-communicated the soil test: the parts with all the phosphorous (5lbs/acre) is the soil test *result*; on the printed bar graph the bar for phosphorous does not go much higher than the bottom of the graph. Also the pH is terrible, after adding lime last year we have only just now gotten it to 5.0 and according to the local people we need to get closer to 6.0-6.5. OTOH this does explain why my pumpkins were the only thing that grew like crazy last year, evidently they do just fine with 5.0 pH. The recommendation from my county ag agent was to add zinc sulfate, some borax, limestone, gypsum/sulfer, and 30 pounds of 10-10-10 per 1000 sq feet.

HTH

Rusty

Thank you Rusty - I always appreciate people jumping in and giving answers. It was very helpful.

edited to add: MY BAD! It's 3-5 lbs lime per every 100 sq. ft.

Also, if you do not have access to compost, you can still use an organic fertilizer. Try Milorganite. I get mine from Home Depot.

Also the amounts in the report are to help you calculate how much to apply. On 10-10-10 for example there is 10% nitrogen or 5 lbs in a 50 lb bag. So if the report says you need to apply 200 lbs per acre, you would need to spread 40 bags to get the correct amount of nitrogen. But you probably know all this.

What I'm really looking for is how much bonemeal and things of that nature (if anything) I should add. I really don't want to use 10-10-10. I will keep the milorgranite in mind in case I need nitrogen however it only has a 2 on the phosphorous which I have virtually none of in my soil. I did buy some Bone Meal when I went to the feed store - it's measured at 4-12-0 and was the highest organic phosphorous supplement I could find that also acts a bit quicker than rock phosphate.

Again thank you for all your help, if you have any new suggestions in light of my corrections to my first statement, please let me know. Sorry again about the confusion!

 

[seedcorn]

ph is 5.0 (note: this is even though we added dolomitic limestone last year).

Phosphorous(P)=Super low, Soil Test Index 5 lbs/Acre
Potassium (K)=Nutrients needed, Soil Test Index 146 lbs/Acre
Calcium(Ca)=Best result I have (still nutrients needed), 346 lbs/Acre
Magnesium(Mg)=Nutrients needed, 93 lbs/ Acre
Zinc(Zn)=low, 2 lbs/Acre

Your pH is way low. Why care because certain minerals are way too available and can become toxic. Some are tied up, so even tho there, they can't be used. there is a chart, I'll try to download for you. Use a hi-cal lime. More expensive but don't want any more Mg on this area.

P is low, P is used for flowering/fruit set. Manure is VERY hi in P. That's why farmers are so monitored on how much manure, they are allowed to use. P run off out of city sewage/too heavily manured fields causes all kinds of nasty problems in our rivers, lakes, oceans...
K is OK. K is what makes corn stand.
Mg seems high to me but I'll do some work. Too many limes have Mg levels that tie up the Ca making pH too low.
Low Zn levels will hurt sweet corn.

All levels are neither good or bad depending on what you want to grow. Blueberries have to have lo pH which you have. Forgot to ask, when did you do soil test? time of the year will affect tests.....sounds stupid but time of year does change values on test.

Here is link if you want to see nutrient vs pH chart.
http://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/HO/HO-237-W.pdf

 

[jamespm_98]

Hello Fur and Feathers, I am in the upstate of SC close to the GA line so we have very similar soil and weather. Mine started as Red Clay with a little sand. I have found the best thing is "sheet composting", this is basically composting in place in my garden. I also switched to 3 foot wide beds and a no till approach. Since I have done this my soil has improved greatly, in fact it now looks dark brown instead of red. I have tons of earthworms now, when I used to use fertilizer I rarely saw an earthworm. When I started I could hardly grow anything, now my soil will support corn with no issues. You should also look at cover crops for the winter such as winter peas, clover and rye. These do wonders for the soil and I use the cover crops to feed my chickens and rabbits. Also pile on as much poo as possible. You may want to concentrate on smaller areas instead of trying to go big since you may not be able to support a big area using organic methods.

It took about two seasons to get my garden to work with organic methods, one reason is I did not know what I was doing and the other is I tried to go big and use traditional techniques. This will be my 4th year as all organic and I would not go back to traditional techniques. Now I have a smaller garden and produce much much more. Compost, cover crops, raised beds and no till works for me, but there are many different ways to be successful.

Good Luck

 

[Rusty]

Compost, cover crops, raised beds and no till works for me, but there are many different ways to be successful.

This too is what I am trying to do. I started here 5 years ago trying to work compost into my red clay "soil" and succeeded in growing tomatoes so bitter they were inedible! In disgust I did nothing for a couple of years and then tried raised beds. My first attempt I made the beds too shallow, so I have started over. This time the beds are 12" high and I am filling them with well-rotted manure from my horses that includes pine shavings and some (but not really a lot) of hay--basically just what comes out of the stalls.

My first bed is 8x8, It's already filled and now covered with black plastic until May 1. I have learned the hard way not to put anything in the ground here before then because we always get one last very hard freeze in late, late April. The second bed is built and I am in the process of filling it. Eventually I hope to have 3 beds 8x8 and 6 beds 4x8 for my total veggie garden. Plus I am building one 4x24 for my herbs and one last 4x8 just for lavender. All of this is going to take some time, so I am not really expecting to plant anything this year in any of the beds except that first 8x8 one.

Foolishly I did not pull a soil report until last spring. That is when I found out the pH is 4.8 and the nitrogen so low that it hardly even registers. Add in the clay soil and raised beds just seem the best way to go here. I plan on pulling soil samples on that 8x8 bed closer to May 1 and see how far off I am. Oh, I did add 10# of lime and 5# of bone meal right before I laid down that black plastic. Now it just needs some warmer weather to "cook" it a bit and then we'll see what we've got. I, too, tend to be organic as much as possible.

It's all very "seat of the pants" around here!



Rusty

 

[Fur and Feathers]

Your pH is way low. Why care because certain minerals are way too available and can become toxic. Some are tied up, so even tho there, they can't be used. there is a chart, I'll try to download for you. Use a hi-cal lime. More expensive but don't want any more Mg on this area.

P is low, P is used for flowering/fruit set. Manure is VERY hi in P. That's why farmers are so monitored on how much manure, they are allowed to use. P run off out of city sewage/too heavily manured fields causes all kinds of nasty problems in our rivers, lakes, oceans...
K is OK. K is what makes corn stand.
Mg seems high to me but I'll do some work. Too many limes have Mg levels that tie up the Ca making pH too low.
Low Zn levels will hurt sweet corn.

All levels are neither good or bad depending on what you want to grow. Blueberries have to have lo pH which you have. Forgot to ask, when did you do soil test? time of the year will affect tests.....sounds stupid but time of year does change values on test.

Here is link if you want to see nutrient vs pH chart.
http://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedi -237-W.pdf

Thanks for the chart and the information. My husband and I are, based on (all of) ya'lls suggestions and our vegetables/herbs needs, going to try and raise the pH by one point this year. This will bring our vegetable garden to 6.0 and herb garden to around 6.5 (we don't want quite a full point on the herb garden). We always get told how we have such good pH for blueberries, however, we just don't like blueberries enough - we much prefer raspberries and blackberries. On a side note: our azaleas do fantastic and we won't be altering the pH in their beds, we just need to find something no more than 2-3 feet tall we can mix in with them...

I just did the soil test last week, while it was semi-warm. It has been an unusually cold and wet winter up here and I tried to delay until the soil warmed up some. Soil temps for when I took these were around 48.82-51.76 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on how far down you go (these results are for between 2 & 8 inches and at the closest AEMN station).

Hello Fur and Feathers, I am in the upstate of SC close to the GA line so we have very similar soil and weather. Mine started as Red Clay with a little sand. I have found the best thing is "sheet composting", this is basically composting in place in my garden. I also switched to 3 foot wide beds and a no till approach. Since I have done this my soil has improved greatly, in fact it now looks dark brown instead of red. I have tons of earthworms now, when I used to use fertilizer I rarely saw an earthworm. When I started I could hardly grow anything, now my soil will support corn with no issues. You should also look at cover crops for the winter such as winter peas, clover and rye. These do wonders for the soil and I use the cover crops to feed my chickens and rabbits. Also pile on as much poo as possible. You may want to concentrate on smaller areas instead of trying to go big since you may not be able to support a big area using organic methods.

It took about two seasons to get my garden to work with organic methods, one reason is I did not know what I was doing and the other is I tried to go big and use traditional techniques. This will be my 4th year as all organic and I would not go back to traditional techniques. Now I have a smaller garden and produce much much more. Compost, cover crops, raised beds and no till works for me, but there are many different ways to be successful.

Good Luck

Compost, cover crops, raised beds and no till works for me, but there are many different ways to be successful.

This too is what I am trying to do. I started here 5 years ago trying to work compost into my red clay "soil" and succeeded in growing tomatoes so bitter they were inedible! In disgust I did nothing for a couple of years and then tried raised beds. My first attempt I made the beds too shallow, so I have started over. This time the beds are 12" high and I am filling them with well-rotted manure from my horses that includes pine shavings and some (but not really a lot) of hay--basically just what comes out of the stalls.

My first bed is 8x8, It's already filled and now covered with black plastic until May 1. I have learned the hard way not to put anything in the ground here before then because we always get one last very hard freeze in late, late April. The second bed is built and I am in the process of filling it. Eventually I hope to have 3 beds 8x8 and 6 beds 4x8 for my total veggie garden. Plus I am building one 4x24 for my herbs and one last 4x8 just for lavender. All of this is going to take some time, so I am not really expecting to plant anything this year in any of the beds except that first 8x8 one.

Foolishly I did not pull a soil report until last spring. That is when I found out the pH is 4.8 and the nitrogen so low that it hardly even registers. Add in the clay soil and raised beds just seem the best way to go here. I plan on pulling soil samples on that 8x8 bed closer to May 1 and see how far off I am. Oh, I did add 10# of lime and 5# of bone meal right before I laid down that black plastic. Now it just needs some warmer weather to "cook" it a bit and then we'll see what we've got. I, too, tend to be organic as much as possible.

It's all very "seat of the pants" around here!

I hear you on the red clay, our road actually washed out this winter, with all the snow and heavy rains and at some points are cars were red, the yard was bleeding and our carpet, several shampooings later is still trying to get all the mud stains out of it. Ah but red clay stains bad. Its also extremely dense and retains all kinds of moisture, for which we were very thankful of during the drought, but poses a bit of a challenge now as we try to work towards a loamier soil.

We do try to incorporate the aged manure from our chickens into the garden especially in areas where we've grown corn (a heavy nitrogen feeder) and also use legumes inter-planted amongst the corn. We've also been using compost, and last year started eating a lot more fresh fruits and vegetables - I will not lie it was in some part so we could use any waste (corn husks, peelings, etc) in our garden compost. Dual purpose everything as it were.

Our herb garden is going to be a raised bed, however, our vegetable garden we try to mix so much up and grow so much corn and potatoes, that we kind of need the large space. We did intend to grow an annual rye last year as a cover crop but time just got away from of us and it was December before we realized it.

Raised bed gardening might be something we go to in the future, however, right now the funds to start setting it up, plus time, and other factors are prohibitive of it. Plus my husband and father are in the process of building me a new overnight coop for my chicks and ducks so they may strangle me if I add any more projects to the list that have to be done before mid-April. Thanks again all for your suggestions, and don't hesitate to let me know if you have any other ideas.