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["John Barbowski" <jbarbowski@gmail.com>]

GREAT POST DONNA! - very informative.

 

I have heavy clay - read concrete! I have been working it for 30 years. I have added sand and sheep manure. I add leaves, compost and organic peat. I used to till the soil to get the frost action to help break down the clay lumps. I now (for the last 5 years) just spread about four inches of leaves over the surface each fall and let the worms and microbes take over. It is slow but the process seems to be working. The leaves act as a mulch; moisture is maintained and weeds are kept to a minimum. By mid summer, the dead leaves are all gone!

 

When I plant, I just excavate the places where I plant the seeds or young plants. I used to have tomato blossom rot till I started to put a tablespoon of pulverized egg shells with each tomato plant (water never being a problem). The main problem I have is an excess of slugs that devastate beans and peppers. 

 

After reviewing your post, I will now try to speed up the 'de-claying' process with the addition of a lime-like substance. I am also going to add crushed oyster shell and fine dolomite from old salt water and African cichlid aquariums to separate heavier clay areas and try to monitor the difference. My main problem will be to pulverize the gravely substances to a much finer substance.  

 

jmb

 

 

On 10/5/07, Donna &/or Kieran <holycow@cookeville.com> wrote:

Regarding dolomite and Mg, according to CEC notions, Dr. Albrecht and that
lot, the ideal Ca to Mg ratio is 6 or 7 to 1.  However, it seems that God in
his infinite wisdom did not make lime in that ratio, giving us a bit of a
juggling act to do.  Dolomite runs 2:1 Ca:Mg.  All other limes run about
10:1 or higher, we can even get a 33:1 from the Franklin mine near
Nashville.  Ca and Mg do different things inside plants, and at very skewed
ratios you can get deficiency symptoms, like blossom end rot in tomatoes
when the soil pH is as high as you would want it to be.  Ca pushes soil
particles apart, while Mg draws them together.  For this reason a tight clay
soil will be improved by the higher 7:1 ratio, but will become much stickier
if given only 2:1 dolomite.  We did this the first year, big mistake.  In
the end we used the 33:1 lime to drive the pH just a trifle higher than I
wanted it, but it brought the ratio back into line.  Sandy soils will do
better with a 6:1 ratio to hold the particles a bit closer together.