Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

You point out
>Simply dumping compost on the soil and hoping for the best might pay off
>in a decade or so, but for someone depending on production levels,
>starting out on a new place on a scale larger than a sandbox, there are
>tools that you should use, but only when you know what you are trying to
>accomplish in the end.

Agree. Our soil needs organic nutrients, tilth, and moisture retention. Or 
everything in other words. To make productive soil fast I use a balanced mix 
of aged manure, and alfalfa meal for N and minerals since the manure has lost 
almost all its N, and small additions of greensand and bone meal for many 
trace minerals. Other natural materials could be substituted such as kelp 
meal, fish meal, rock dusts, etc. to go with the aged manure. IMHO the 
minerals should be mixed in when the manure is decomposing with humic acids 
to act on the minerals. For me this is a cardinal rule I read somewhere but 
made sense to me. And I have this decomposition process going on IN the 
growing bed soil so nutrients aren't volatized or otherwise lost to the soil. 
Anyway this worked well last year as our first season in this location. Not 
full potential the first year, but very good production (and pest resistance) 
considering this soil grew nothing before but stunted rabbit brush. This year 
the beds are growing more lush and green than last year. That includes all 
the squash varieties, the Nantes carrots, the garlic, and shallots. And of 
course the tomatoes trying to push out the top of the greenhouse. YMMV.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 7/10/2008 at 2:30 PM Dan Conine wrote:

>One of the best values in soil testing is to find out what NOT to put on
>your soil. My land has had manure dumped on it for decades, and the soil
>tests show that I have no need to buy P or K, while N will come from
>legumes. pH is another matter. An argument for doing pH testing on plant
>tissue could be raised, vs. soil pH, and I have no qualm with that.
>There are experiential things that will tell us about our soil which are
>probably more reliable and accurate (know your place), but since our
>society has basically outlawed the experiential farming methods, so has
>the experience necessary to reliable evaluation gone away. In the
>meantime, soil testing should be considered in the right context, and
>there are laboratories which perform much more than mineral salt
>testing. Elaine Ingram's labs http://www.soilfoodweb.com/, for example,
>where organic matter, mycorhizae, biological activity, etc. are measured
>and compared. There are others who will perform micronutrient tests
>which also can be quite useful.
>Simply dumping compost on the soil and hoping for the best might pay off
>in a decade or so, but for someone depending on production levels,
>starting out on a new place on a scale larger than a sandbox, there are
>tools that you should use, but only when you know what you are trying to
>accomplish in the end.
>The typical university methods of bioactivity tests are really doing
>cultures at the pathogen temperatures, so they make recommendations that
>would encourage everything BUT what you want to grow. We are just
>beginning to learn about the true varieties of life in the soil, and the
>term 'soil testing' will change in its application over time. Poke your
>head into the local extension or university lab once in a while and ask
>what they are doing. Make some suggestions that they keep an eye out for
>real advancements that don't come from the fertilizer companies.
>
>Dan C.
>Belgium,WI
>