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

not set fruit. Too much nitrogen fertilizer, nighttime temperatures over

It's probably the temperature then. Thanks.

That's really your soil??

Um, yeah. Since it's displaced into a bucket, it's actually my dirt.

Here's what it looks like as soil when it's not displaced:

Here is a zoomed out view showing where I got the topsoil from:

It's weathered from Franciscan red chert from the bottom of the ocean which has been shoved against the continent to the tune of tens of thousands of feet, and then exposed by weathering over the past tens of millions of years, such that it's currently "soil".

Why do you ask?

why spend money on a nutrient poor and expensive item when you have tons of more nutritionally complex material available for free?

food is for eating, don't waste it.

songbird

Danny D. wrote: ...

plant garlic in the fall before your rainy season starts. down a few inches.

edible as green garlic too after it starts growing again (bury it even deeper if you plan on harvesting it early as that means the blanched part of the shoot is longer :) ).

songbird

That might work if he's in NoCal. After all, Gilroy is the garlic capital of the world. There aren't many towns where you can drive through and guess their principal cash crop with your eyes closed.

I haven't read *every* post in the discussion, but I was wondering if you've decided on how you're actually going to amend the soil to grow a garden?

and when the wind is right (up the salinas valley into the coyote valley), you can smell Gilroy Foods in south san jose,

Well, I found out that mixing in baking flour might not be the best solution because it has a lot of amylopectin, which, I'm told, will just form a hard "clay" like substance in the soil.

I do plan on mixing in some bottom-of-the-pile wood-chip detritus and maybe even some under-oak leaf rakings, which, I'm told, will contain zillions of fibers from fungi, which help by allowing better water penetration and adsorption (on the fungi fibers) and with good bacterial action (such as nitrogen fixing).

I might even throw in some Guadalupe manure from San Jose residents' poop, but it might be easier to use non-coal wood-original charcoal ground up to add to the existing "dirt" to make my own "terra preta":

Apparently charcoal has an immense surface area, acres of surface area, in fact, in a single handful of soil (I'm told), which aids in the adsorption of water and associated dissolved nutrients.

In addition, I'm told, I can add calcium carbonate, which also helps in the adsorption of moisture in this otherwise dry soil.

Of course, considering what I'm starting with, it won't be easy by any means, but, it should be doable if I think it all the way through.

Here is the "rock" I'm starting with, before it weathers to "stone" and then eventually layers into "soil" before I displaced into my "dirt"...

They call it the stinking rose, I think...

It's more of a science project than a commercial venture.

For example, I found out that mixing in baking flour might not be the best solution because it has a lot of amylopectin, which, I'm told, will just form a hard "clay" like substance in the soil.

I do plan on mixing in some bottom-of-the-pile wood-chip detritus and maybe even some under-oak leaf rakings, which, I'm told, will contain zillions of fibers from fungi, which help by allowing better water penetration and adsorption (on the fungi fibers) and with good bacterial action (such as nitrogen fixing).

I might even throw in some Guadalupe manure from San Jose residents' poop, but it might be easier to use non-coal wood-original charcoal ground up to add to the existing "dirt" to make my own "terra preta":

Apparently charcoal has an immense surface area, acres of surface area, in fact, in a single handful of soil (I'm told), which aids in the adsorption of water and associated dissolved nutrients.

In addition, I'm told, I can add calcium carbonate, which also helps in the adsorption of moisture in this otherwise dry soil.

Of course, considering what I'm starting with, it won't be easy by any means, but, it should be doable if I think it all the way through.

Here is the "rock" I'm starting with, before it weathers to "stone" and then eventually layers into "soil" before I displaced into my "dirt"...

Flour is way, way, way too processed to be of any use. Besides, when the water hits it, it make paste and will harden up.

Cindy Hamilton

Thanks. I have a *lot* of the geology texts for my area, since it's one of the most studied areas on the planet (lots of earthquakes occur here).

Here's a photo I took today of the classic "ribboning" of the sedimentary rock layers in cut along my rather steep driveway.

You can see that the rocks have been blended by a blender of sorts, which they term the "nightmare of the Franciscan sediments" in geology books.

I belatedly agree wholeheartedly with you. The flour will basically turn the soil to "stone".

I have worked with some of the locals to come up with a "plan" to convert the soil into home-made potting soil.

This is what we start with, which is 30-million year old beds of sediment from the ocean bottom which have been shoved onto the continent via the wonders of plate tectonics:

I can dig a thousand foot hole, and it would still be "this stuff":

So I dig it out of the ravines, where it collects as "top soil":

Given that organics are so powerful (complex, but powerful), my new plan is to add fungus-filled leaf rakings from either underneath the oak trees or at the bottom of the wood-chip piles dotting my yard everywhere:

I may even burn some of this spare wood "chunks" into charcoal, which apparently has "acres" of surface area per handful!

That way, I can make my own "terra preta":

In addition, I'm told, I can add calcium via some of my readily available pool chemicals, which also helps in the adsorption of moisture in this otherwise dry soil.

And, of course, I'm gonna need "fertilizer" of some sort.

Already two of the neighbors said I can have all the manure off their goat and alpaca filled property that I can handle!

Interesting...

Are you going for the "organic gardening" approach?

I don't believe in "organic". I took plenty of chemistry in my day as I have multiple degrees.

Organic is meaningless (to me). I would pay *less* for organic labeled products, but not more.

I just like experiments. And I like to know exactly what I'm doing.

Details are everything.

Really? What are you degrees in?

I like details, too.

This year when it came time to plant in my raised beds, I had to supplement the soil for several reasons. I didn't have enough compost for all of my beds, so I created compost IN each raised bed. Maybe you could do the same thing?

The garden area is tiny. Maybe forty feet by fifteen feet is fenced off from the critters. But right now, we're just using five-gallon buckets of Costco detergent pails. :)

The flour was for adding "organics" but it fails upon closer inspection. Again, I have 50 pound bags of flour that the wife uses for baking. I guess I could use sugar. She has 25 pound bags of that stuff too.

She's mad at me because she planted her "babies" in that planter and nothing came of it. She cares very much about all her babies!

Why would you put flour in the garden soil?