Fertilizing rocky soil where it's half soil half stones (and no dirt)

[rbowman]

I wish mine was only half rocks. I understand what you're trying to do but if I wanted to seriously grow veggies I'd go with raised beds.

[Dean Hoffman]

Why don't you know this stuff if you had a professor who said dirt and soil are different things? Too many years ago? A dozen roses in a corn field are a dozen weeds. A weed is any plant out of place.

[songbird]

Danny D. wrote: ...

if it is light in color there's not much humus (or any) or carbon in there.

i haven't looked at the pictures yet. was in a bit of a rush this morning...

mostly clay, some sand, compacted, very fertile and good for holding moisture and nutrients but not easy to work once it get dried out or when it is too wet. i much prefer it over overly sandy soil though. we get decent crops from our gardens when others around us with sandier soils have to struggle or give up entirely.

this is an example from a few years ago of what our soil amended with sand looks like (the light soil) and what i use to help the garden fertility along (worms and worm poo/pee - the dark stuff):

songbird

[songbird]

Danny D. wrote: ...

google basic soil analysis. there are many versions of it, but one is simple enough that anyone with a clear jar and some water can manage. it will tell you the mix of various things in terms of composition which is where you want to start an analysis.

once you understand the different steps and elements that make up good soil, then you can look at nutrients and soil organic matter, soil carbon and the active soil community which is the basis of fertility. the substrate of the soil (what it is made of) can be greatly enhanced by adding organic matter to it, but if the soil/substrate is poor and water flows through it too quickly and there is no clay then organic matter and nutrients are easily lost (you will use more than is needed and lose fertility if there are heavy rains).

that movie said very little/next to nothing about fungi and their role along with the various other soil critters.

yes, however, it really is better in terms of labor and time/efforts/water invested to figure out which aspect is lacking and adjust that first before pouring other stuff into it.

it looks mostly mineral, sandy, gritty and not any clay or loam and almost no organic matter at all or other forms of carbon.

color and texture.

add clay, add organic matter, add nitrogen laden chopped up plant stuff, moisten, let sit for a few weeks, plant.

learn how to worm compost food/paper scraps...

i use a method which is simple but also refurbishes garden soil (using earthworms along with the other composting worms)...

have fun, i certainly am! :)

songbird

[songbird]

Danny D. wrote: ...

if you are planning on growing root crops (like carrots) you don't want large stones in the soil.

besides, it's tough on the hands to work in a garden bed if the soil is full of stones (and tough on garden tools too).

smalls stones can provide some basic nutrients via fungi and other processes which break things down (plant roots/exhudates, bacterial stuffs, freeze/thaw cycle, water leaching, wind and rain motion, worms grinding...), but you don't usually need a lot of those in comparison to the more common nutrients known to be useful for plants (N, P, K plus many others too).

there's entire books written on this topic, but what you can do for most soils to help without having to do any testing at all is to add organic matter which will also help adjust pH and improve water and nutrient holding capabilities.

i've never tested the soil here at all. when i first started growing veggies they didn't do as well as they could. now things go much better.

songbird

[songbird]

no, vineyards worth their effort get their character from the native soil. you don't really want to change that much, because if you do then it may change the flavor of the wines... that is if you are growing grapes for making wines of any quality.

in primarily mineral soil, yes, but added along with other things (clay and silt and organic matter).

no. not too many stones here at the surface.

songbird

[Danny D.]

I have some wild tomatoe plants from where I threw some of teh household waste as compost. Tall plants. Little yellow flowers but no tomatoes. I joke the bees didn't do their job. The plant already is about 4 feet tall, but no tomatoes. Sigh.

[Danny D.]

So yours is worse than half stones? Part of my question was to compare with others.

[Danny D.]

We're just gonna grow food waste. I envision tomato, garlic, onion, carrot, pepper, and my favorite, horse radish from the jar of condiments! :)

[Danny D.]

That one seems cost effective, since sending soil out for analysis will cost more than the twenty bucks that kit costs!

Thanks.

[Danny D.]

I guess I need to look it up because the plants I know can drill through solid rock it seems. SO the roots find a way.

I never understood when people say plants need to "breathe" as if they had lungs, or that they can "drown". I understand the use of flowery words but they really don't tell me anything since plants don't have lungs.

Looking at the URL ...

I had not realized that plants use oxygen to burn sugar to make energy; I had always thought oxygen was a waste product for plants (which it is). I didn't realize it's *both* a waste product by day and a necessary product by night. Apparently it simply excretes more oxygen from the green parts than it consumes from all the parts of the plant.

The roots aren't green. So the roots need oxygen. They get that oxygen from the air spaces in the soil. *that* is why they can *drown*. They actually need air at the roots. Who knew that roots needed air? (I always thought putting roots in air was a bad thing.)

So much I don't know...

[songbird]

Danny D. wrote: ...

different plants need different types and amounts of nutrients.

i usually start each new garden by planting the heaviest feeding plants first (tomatoes) and then after that amend or not as needed. crop rotations extend the time between amendments (i get three or four years in some gardens and the soil keeps improving because i'm burying organic materials in there sometimes even if i'm not adding anything else - the stuff i'm adding is usually either weeds or the left- overs from plants grown in there and/or leaves, wood chips, pieces of bark, etc.).

my fertilizers for gardens are the worms (worm pee/poo and the worms themselves along with whatever garden soil has been reprocessed by the worms over the year that i go between taking the worm buckets out) and some green manure crops used to add more N and organic materials. i also have wood fire ashes and charcoal pieces to use once in a while.

in the arid southwest you're going to need larger planters IMO and some surface mulches to keep the water situation from getting too horrible. raised beds will also be likely a bit hot if they are too small for some plants. it may also be very hard to have any worms stick around and be very expensive (water costs). rain barrels can help catch the infrequent rains and to help. many other methods worth adopting for arid climates also help (wind breaks, swales, partial shading, plant selection)... whatever rains you do get you want to capture as much as you can and soak it in, but you also should have a good idea of the area you are in and how stable it is. don't need to create any hazards/landslides...

songbird

[songbird]

Danny D. wrote: ...

likely very good reasons for that (grape vine roots can go pretty deep along with the abundant sunshine). grapes do poorly around here (too much fog/fungal diseases).

songbird

[rbowman]

I live on the bottom of what used to be a 1500' deep proglacial lake about 15,000 years ago. Yeah, it's a little rocky :)

[trader_4]

Northern CA I believe, though IDT it was stated here.

[dadiOH]

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Chert is not clayish sandstone, it is a type of cryptocrystalline quartz like chalcedony, flint, agate, jasper, etc. Consequently, chemically, it is SiO2; small amounts of trace elements can give it varying colors.

I live on the Florida "ridge" which is a slightly elevetaed, NS area in central Florida. It was a beach when most of Florida was underwater and is pretty much pure quartz sand. In my case, 60' of it. Odd to walk on but stuff grows in it just fine. True, some of it has acquired a varying amount of decayed matter in the top foot or so over the years but even without it, things grow. Why? Water.

I don't know where you live in California but consider the hugely productive agricultural area of the central valley...without water, it is a desert.

And speaking of deserts, ever seen one a few days after a good rain?.

[dadiOH]

You add it. Leaves, grass, corn husk, chopped up corn cobs, cow poop...whatever. However, it isn't any good for the soil until it decomposes. It will do that itself just by digging it into the soil (adding worms will help too) but it will do so much more quickly if you compost it. Google "composting".

Sure. Peat moss.

FWIW, no amount of organic matter will help grow stuff without - ready? - water :) .

[dadiOH]

You probably have a County agricultural agent. Try him/her for suggestions..

[dadiOH]

Tomatos need cool nights to set fruit.

[Pavel314]

Our county landfill sells a pick-up full of compost for $20; my wife gets a load every year for her gardens. Maybe you can get that locally. Use the compost to build up your soil for planting.

Paul