Sand, Silt and Clay

[wordwiz]

Still trying to figure out why part of my garden is dead (though some weeds ARE starting to grow. I did a very basic soil test - dig out a sample of soil down to eight inches, put it in a jar, add water, shake it up and let it settle.

Ideally, it should be 40 percent sand, 40 percent silt and 20 percent clay. After eight hours, it looks like it is 100 percent silt. No sand, no clay.

Could the lack of clay have something to do with the inability to sustain growth during summer? If so, any idea what I can add to the soil?

Mike

[RowBear]

I would send a soil sample to my county extention office or a university for testing. The garden "experts" generally recommend adding organic matter to improve soil no matter if it's mainly clay or sand.

[Chiliac]

Did you grow the same kinda fruit/vegetables/whatever in this part of the garden for years in a row?

[wordwiz]

I started about three years ago. Tried potatoes, none came up. Some green beans and corn did two years ago, but they were stunted and produced next to nothing. Last year I tried lettuce, basil and green beans - everything came up but again was stunted - the lettuce was the worst. It never got more than a couple inches tall. But once I get about 12 feet away from the fence, stuff grows great.

I just checked my soil sample and after a day it seems to have a very, very thin layer (maybe 1/32 of an inch) layer of clay and then the rest seems to be silt. There is absolutely no change in the color of the stuff. Makes me wonder if perhaps the soil is incapable of holding moisture during the summer, which might explain why plants will sprout (the potatoes were probably my fault - I used old ones from under the counter) but never mature fully.

(Thinking back while typing...)
You know, when I first moved here, nothing much grew there, not even grass. I attributed that to the area being shaded by a huge tree, though it did get lots of afternoon and evening sun. After I dug up the yard for the pool and moved the dirt there, stuff would grow but eventually, I had the dirt moved and sowed grass. It grew - because it was watered, heavily, no less than every three days. Once the pool was taken down, the grass grew but not very well.

All along, I've been thinking the chlorine from the pool water and the tree has been what is wrong with the soil when it is (maybe, possibly, perhaps) the soil itself.

Any thoughts? Would this be ideal ground for peppers since it sure drains nicely?

Mike

[AlabamaJack]

how big an area are you talking about Mike?

[wordwiz]

AJ,

It's about 12 feet wide by 25 feet long. Then the ground gets better. Stuff grows there, just not quite as good as it does once I get further away from the area. There is definitely a difference in the soil. I almost have to push the rotary tiller through that ground, it breaks apart so easily. In the rest of the garden, I have to keep the thing from running away.

Mike

[AlabamaJack]

do you have the history of what was there before your house Mike?....not implying anything, just curious...something is causing the difference...

a thought would be to dig up about 2 feet deep of it, and replace it with good soil you build....compost, sand, etc...there may be something in the soil that would prevent building the soil from working...JMO

[wordwiz]

AJ,

My neighbors have never mentioned anything actually being there and there are no signs of any structures such as pieces of concrete, metal, etc. Plus, when I was watering it extremely heavily, grass grew fine. But even if I ran the pump for five minutes, flushing 50 gallons of water per minute, I could walk through it 30 minutes later and it wouldn't be wet on top.

I wish I had thought of this two months ago. There's no way I can do much this year, except maybe add bags of something to it and till it in. I alreay have potatoes and stuff planted below it and there is not enough room to get even a bobcat back in there now. No way would I try doing this with a shovel.

Mike

[AlabamaJack]

Mike, with the access to information you have, you probably could do a search on the history of the land don't you think?....you got me really curious now....

I totally understand about digging with a shovel and moving that much dirt...unless you could talk a high school football team into it...barter with them.....heck a team of kids could move that dirt in a couple of hours don't you think?

[POTAWIE]

I'd check the PH of the soil. What type of tree grew there previously?
I'd also suggest adding compost and other organic matter such as kitchen scraps, leaves and cut grass.

[wordwiz]

AJ,

I'll ask my neighbor and some of the "historians" of Hartwell what they know. But I can't think of anything that would change the composition of the soil that much.

Mike

[AlabamaJack]

What Potawie said is right...

I am just curious why that particular spot is bad...are there any other spots like that around you?....

[wordwiz]

The neighbor's yard just behind it. Grass doesn't grow well there either. I think they mow it a couple of times a year.

Potawie,

It was an English Elm, or so we were told. I have some compost that I can add this fall but it hasn't finished working yet. Thousands and thousands of tomato seeds in it from last fall!

I'm waiting on a ph and fertility meter. Hoping to get it today or tomorrow.

Assuming the soil is fertile (N-P-K, etc.,) and the ph is okay, will this dirt work in containers? That would enable me to "move" quite a bit of the soil, add compost and stuff this fall then cover it with the dirt and sow some wheat for overwintering. As noted above, it has very little clay or sand, mostly silt.

Mike

[Chiliac]

A guy I knew had a similiar problem. He decided to dig a hole and found hundreds of beer cans, an oil barrel or two, all kinda rubble and bricks and a refrigerator.

Before you ask, the cans were empty and the fridge didn't work anymore. :)

Don't mean to scare you, but it would be a good idea to take a look what might lurk below where the grass should be. I wouldn't use the "dirt" in containers until you are absolutely sure what the problem is!

I suggest using containers with soil from wherever, but not that certain spot!

[wordwiz]

When I was digging out the ground for the pool, I did run across an old fireplace. Well, not the fireplace itself but some ashes and old coins, though not so old as to be collector's items!

Seriously, the soil composition in that one part of the garden is different. Using a little garden tool - one of those that is about six inches long and three inches wide, I could easily plunge it into the soil all the way. This is soil that has not been worked in almost a full year. Even in ground that I tilled a couple of weeks ago, I could not do that. I'm coming to the belief the tree dying and stuff not growing very well there has nothing to do with me using that area to backwash the pool. Think about it: the only time anything has grown there is when I planted grass and watered it at least three times a week, using a bunch of water at a time.

Friday, I dug up some up the dirt and put it in a small pot, as I wanted to see if a seed would sprout. This was not the top soil, but dirt from at least six inches I soaked it with water, until it was muddy. We haven't had a whole lot of sun since then. I just checked it and two inches down it falls apart.

If the problem with the dirt is an inabilty to maintain moisture for more than three days, I can easily deal with that, from simply adding shredded newspapers or some clayish soil to watering them every three days if it doesn't rain. Then this fall, I'll have access to literally tons of free horse manure mixed with straw plus I can get loads of dirt that is more clay than anything.

Yep, I'm on a budget. I've already tripled last year's expenditures and the only thing I have in the "ground" so far is some potatoes.

Of course, this year I plan on selling produce and I didn't last year.

Mike

[JayT]

[QUOTE=Chiliac;74133]A guy I knew had a similiar problem. He decided to dig a hole and found hundreds of beer cans, an oil barrel or two, all kinda rubble and bricks and a refrigerator.

Before you ask, the cans were empty and the fridge didn't work anymore. :)

Did IGG used to live there? :beer::lol:

[DevilDuck]

Did you "lime" the dirt before putting in the pool? That will nuke the soil every time.

Edit:

Did you have a DE filter or a cartridge filter? The reason I ask (besides being in the pool biz for 10 years) is that DE will "float" on top of regular dirt. In other words, unless you dig it all out, it will float back to the top. You'll never be able to grow anything in it. Besides the pool chems (which by the way plants seem to LOVE...pool water that is) it also has skin flakes, hair, and all other sorts of contaminants.

[texas blues]

Are dirt, grass, and pools food?
Cheers, TB.

[wordwiz]

First - I'm not sure I would let Iggy close to my home. He is from Cleveland and that's three strikes against him to start with!

DD - I haven't done anything with the soilin the last three years except add a tad of fertilizer when I sowed the seeds. I had a cartridge filter for the first few years but quit using it. At first, it was a two-part filtration system - the filter and then the sand filter. I replaced the sand every 3-5 years. A couple of times, when the water got really nasty, I would add a little diatomasious (spelling?) earth, but not much. I bought a five-pound bag and still have probably three pounds of it left.

Maybe I can add this to the dirt in my containers!!!

Mike

[DevilDuck]

No!!!!! Don't put that in your containers!!!!!!

I have a feeling that's part of the problem in your "dead spot".

[wordwiz]

My soil tester came in. I measured the ph level - get this: 1.0! That's O-N-E. Good grief - no wonder nothing grows there. Looks like I need a few bags of lime.

Mike

[Chiliac]

I wouldn't be worried by the ph level alone. There is definitely sth very wrong with this soil. I'd get it properly tested and grow in containers only this season (not filled with this soil of course, as DD said!).

[POTAWIE]

What's the PH of the good soil in you're yard?

[AlabamaJack]

I have been thinking Mike...from what you described about finding a fireplace and bits of stuff....I will bet you a dollar to a donut there was an old house or homestead that sat on that spot many years ago and it burned to the ground leaving nothing but ashes....from the size you are describing, that would fit an 18th or early 19th century home...

you think this is a possibility?

[wordwiz]

Chiliac, I'm bound and determined to try a couple of plants in that soil but in a container. It may take me a couple of months to get this soil built up but by then I will have some late peppers large enough to transplant. If early experiements show the soil improving, I may try using some of the dirt in "some" of the peppers. I've got about 45 different types so if a couple do not produce, it's not a big deal. I'll also be able to find out if mixing in potting soil/mulch and fertilizer will put the soil back into condition. The area is about a third of my available area so I need to fix it.

Potawie, the other soil is about 6.5-6.7. Not a whole lot of nutrients in any of it, but I can fix that. Wheat is a fantastic cover crop!

AJ, this house was built in the early 1900s. If you divide the property into thirds, the ashes were found at the end of the second third. Of course, it was long ago and streets may have moved but the dead spot is furthest from the road. It really seems unlikely that area suffered a fire.

This area was largely carved by the glaciers that moved through millenia ago. We don't know the neighbors who own the property behind us - it has been owned by probably eight different people in the last 20 years, almost all of them slumlords. When I first moved here, a really neat guy rented the top story. He was, actually, a rocket scientist. Worked for NASA but some of his job started getting into designing rockets to deliver bombs instead of space exploration. He quit.

Was talking with him once about using solar heat to warm my pool. The guy calculated the area of the roof I had, the size of the pool and number of gallons of water it had, the average daily temperature, flow of the water through the solar panels, the warming that would occur naturally - the whole shebang! He ended up moving a couple of years later because his son had MS and could not get up and down the steps. He was the only person I ever rode with that would take his car out of gear at a stop light (manual transmission).

I talked with my other neighbor who has lived here for years and years and he cannot ever remember there being anything back there. But he has a spot in his yard - pretty much parallel to mine, where he has trouble growing anything.

Mike

[wordwiz]

An update - the dead area simply will not hold moisture. We had a 1/2 of rain Wednesday with another 2 inches Thursday. Yesterday, I could dig down three inches and the dirt fell apart.

I'm slowly removing the top of it and mixing it with potting soil, peat with cow manure and topsoil and putting that around my potatoes. They seem to love the mixture - they grew more than eight inches last week. I also put a couple of inches of it at the bottom of my pepper containers, plus filling up the container. In other words, put the mixture at the very bottom, add a layer of new topsoil, put the plant in and add nothing but top soil until the roots (usually about five inches tall) are covered, add a layer of potting soil then cover to the bottom leaves with the dead dirt.

I hope, over time, to remove eight inches of dirt and then replace it with the combo from above and compost.

Mike