Tested my soil after planting. Now what can I safely change?

[brad]

First-time gardener here from the upstate of SC (well I grew up on a farm but I've since been 'city-fied' all my adult life until now) and I made the mistake of not testing my soil before spring. I honestly never thought about it until I started seeing what looked to be deficiencies in some of the vegetable plants, so I sent a sample to Clemson and I received the results back from them today.

[SOIL SAMPLE RESULTS - IMAGE IN NEXT POST]

As you can see, my soil needs some help.

My main question right now is, what can I safely do to improve this soil while the garden is growing?

We currently have corn, green beans, tomatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, peppers, zucchini, squash, watermelon, and a few other things planted and growing. The tomatoes have already started producing, as have the peppers & green beans (bush variety), but most all of the plants are small (even the ones producing).

We used 10-10-10 when planting, and plan to side-dress the corn with nitrogen tomorrow.

What else should we do to help the garden this season? I have already started picking up loads of manure from the local equestrian center and stockpiling it to spread in the fall, and we have started a couple of other compost piles as well (grass clippings, etc) for next year, but this soil needs help immediately and I want to do it as safely as possible for the sake of the existing plants.

The extension office recommended 125lbs of lime per 1000 sq ft (our garden is about 2000 sq ft) so should we apply that now? They also recommended the following:

"Before planting, broadcast and work into the soil 10 lbs 10-10-10, 2-1/2 lbs muriate of potash (0-0-60) and 8 lbs triple superphosphate (0-46-0) per 1,000 square feet (or for each 300 feet of row). Three weeks after appearance of first new leaves, apply four inches from base of the plants, 15 lbs 10-10-10 per 300 feet of row in a continuous band. Broadcast dolomitic limestone as recommended, in the fall or at least 6 to 8 weeks prior to planting and mix into the soil to the planting depth."

So as you can see, their recommendations assume that I did the right thing and completed this test before planting. So since I didn't do that, what are my options for this year's garden?

Thanks in advance for your input - I have learned a ton from this site so far this spring!

 

[brad]

 

[journey11]

Lime takes a few months to kick in. I put mine on in the fall. It corrects the pH by raising it which makes the other nutrients in the soil more readily available to the plants. Your soil appears to be too acidic. Different plants like a different range of pH and will somewhat tolerate one end of the spectrum or the other. 6 is a good pH to shoot for. Besides ag lime-- hardwood ash, bone meal, crushed marble, or crushed oyster shells can be added to bring it up. Go slow, add a little at a time so you don't over do it.

Adding bone meal will help raise your phosphorus and calcium levels. You can also use powdered milk, apply it mixed with water or you can gently scratch the powder into the soil around the plants.

Your pH is the main problem though. Very few things will tolerate that acidic soil. Here's a chart showing optimal ranges for each veggie.

Good luck! I think we've all taken our share of lumps just starting out. Hope you can turn things around, but if all else fails, you might try a little container gardening until you can get your soil where it needs to be.

ETA: and !

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Hi brad and welcome to the forums.

First of all, don't panic. Relax and enjoy the learning experience with your garden. Everyone here has had similar discoveries through the years and it's certainly not the end of the world to have soil condition issues at first. It may be too late to bring the acidic condition down in your entire garden for this growing season. But if you plan to make several plantings as the season goes along you can amend each area of the garden just before you plant the new stuff. Lime takes a little while to do it's job but you can only do what you can do.

Sure some of your existing plants would maybe do better if you had done your amending last fall or during January or February but don't beat yourself up over it. Enjoy what you have and learn from it.

Something that I have learned over the past 40 years of home gardening is that it's hard to apply too much organic material to your soil. A few years ago I put in a little garden plot that I made just for experiments. It's about 30 ft. x 50 ft. During my efforts to turn yucky blue clay into a garden my neighbor was harvesting 1200 acres of feed corn. I asked if I could have some of the "trash" from the combine as it was blown out of the chute. He said that he was going to blow some into his dump truck to use in his veggie garden and that he would bring me a load. Well, he sure brought me a load alright. I was not home when he came over so he spread the powdered corn stalks 8" deep over my entire plot. Wow! That fall I plowed it under and the following spring I tilled it in some more. The next year we did it again. That's 16" of ground up corn stalks and leaves. I also put 4 tons of lime on the plot that second year. To make a long story short . . . this is one of my best veggie plots now even though the soil was absolutely terrible when I started 6 years ago. Every fall I add another layer of organic material (mostly old compost with lots of lawn and cow manure nowadays). I'm convinced that lots of organic material is a key to good soil.

Sorry for the long post but you said that you're new to gardening and I thought you could learn from my experience with my experimental plot. Just relax and enjoy your garden.

 

[Carol Dee]

 

[brad]

Thank you folks for the warm welcome.

I'm now taking my deep breath, and relaxing as instructed.

I can't stand it though - I am driven to get out there and do something to the soil to improve conditions this season. Some of the plants - especially the cukes - are in obvious distress and I suspect the soil is the culprit since all other conditions this year have been ideal so far.

I know the real soil work will come in the fall/spring and I'll reap those benefits next year, but is it safe for the existing garden for me to at least start to apply some of the lime and triple superphosphate now?

 

[Smiles Jr.]

. . . but is it safe for the existing garden for me to at least start to apply some of the lime and triple superphosphate now?

Sure - give it a try. But don't over do it. If it were mine, I would go with 1/2 the recommended amounts of lime and phosphate. Something else you may want to try is to prepare a patch of your garden's soil (where nothing is planted) as necessary. Then transplant some of the existing plants to the newly amended area. Keep in mind that some plants do not transplant well, but it's worth a try.

 

[joz]

Not to hijack, but...

For a small garden plot (say, 20x50), how many soil samples are recommended? One? One from the general beds, and one from under the compost pile?

 

[brad]

Not to hijack, but...

For a small garden plot (say, 20x50), how many soil samples are recommended? One? One from the general beds, and one from under the compost pile?

Here are the recommendations from my local extension: http://www.clemson.edu/public/regulatory/ag_svc_lab/soil_testing/collecting_samples.html

 

[joz]

Thanks much... LSU Ag Center was missing this info (or I didn't look hard enough to find it -- it's been known to happen).

Guess I'll take sub-samples from various areas in my garden (but not near the compost, as I bet it'd throw the curve) and mix 'em up, then pack 'em in a ziplock bag.