Read at : Google Alert - gardening
Gardeners who are tired of being dirt poor, take heart as spring approaches. You don’t have to dump a wheelbarrow full of greenbacks to get rich dirt. Make your own. All it takes is adding the stuff good soil needs to the common dirt you walk over every day in your own backyard. Of course, if you want to spend a minimum amount of money, you’ll have to commit to spending the time it takes to build your own compost pile. Ask Eddie Wharton and he’ll tell you the impressive pile of dark, rich compost in his Port Neches backyard is the secret to his success as a gardener. Wharton is a serious composter who spreads a lot of manure.
“A man lives about a mile from me who has a horse farm. He uses rice hulls (in the stalls). You get horse manure mixed in with the rice hulls and that’s what I use primarily to compost,” said Wharton, 71, a retired engineer with DuPont. He also throws in leaves and old rinds from his small citrus grove.
“Citrus rinds are 33 percent phosphorous. When you put these in the compost pile, the microbes turn them into useful material for plants,” said Wharton, who has been gardening off and on all his life (”seriously” for the past 12).
Nelson Alston, 72, a retired nurseryman who has a horticulture degree from McNeese State University in Lake Charles, spent decades making his own soil. It’s not that hard if you start with “clean” dirt, free of insects and disease.
“Add to that as much as 30 percent organic matter. What you want to be sure of is that it is well-rotted compost that has been through the process and decomposed. If you use un-rotted material, it depletes the soil of nitrogen - and you don’t want that,” Alston, of Port Arthur, said.
Add another 10 percent sand and 10 percent peat moss for good aeration and drainage. Then, combine that finished mix with an equal amount of the parent dirt you started with, said Alston, who spent 35 years “learning this stuff.”
Having different sized particles in the mix is key, Alston said.
“The more diversity in the particle size, the better the soil. It’s loose, and allows for good drainage. Roots have to breathe. You have to have oxygen get to them. The soil breathes better,” Wharton said. “Sand helps drainage. Organic matter feeds it and peat moss helps aerate it.”
Micah Meyer, Jefferson County Extension Agent, reduces the formula to its simplest level.
“Use 1/3 good clean soil or finished compost, 1/3 sand or Perlite, and 1/3 peat moss,” Meyer said.
Many gardeners start with heavy clay or “gumbo” soils or dirt that has been compacted. Adding two to three inches of sand and three inches of compost and tilling both layers into the soil is a good way to get good garden soil, Meyer said.
“Compost is the key,” Meyer said. “Compost will help loosen heavy clay soils and increase drainage. Compost will help a sandy soil bind together and retain moisture. So you can’t go wrong with adding compost to your planting area.”
In gardening groups, the adage is “The Gardener with The Most Compost Wins,” Meyer said.
Gardeners who aren’t planting a vegetable garden and need only a small amount of soil can add compost, sand, Perlite, Vermiculite, peat moss or other purchased soil amendments.
Meyer is high on expanded shale, a relatively new gardening product that greatly improves clay soils.
Gardening can be as much a challenge as it is a pleasure. Gardeners can’t control sunlight, temperature or rainfall, but they can control the soil, said Dennis Franklin, a plant health consultant who writes a gardening column for The Enterprise.
(continued)
