Luke2010
Newly Registered
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 11:54 am
Location: Toronto

Lime in soil too late, help.

Hello everyone, I'm new to the forums and to vegetable gardening for that matter. I've been browsing through your forums for a couple days now. There seems to be many knowledgeable, veteran gardeners in your community.
I've got, what seems to me, to be a pretty serious problem on my hand that I hope some of you an help me with it.
I've for the first time started a vegetable garden plot in my backyard this year. I turned up a plot about the size of 10'x 15', added 4 bags of cow manure, 5 bags of black earth garden soil, and one bag of peat moss. I've set up a compost, and a sprinkler system for watering.

My problem began when one of the guys that was helping me decided to throw a dusting of lime over my entire garden. He said since there were pine trees in the area that the soil would be to acidic for my vegetables, and the lime would fix this problem. Not knowing any better I let him go ahead with it. After reading your forums and talking to some people I know, I've learned that we made a huge mistake, as I hope to have my vegetables in the garden within a months time, and that lime should only be added to the soil months before planting.

My plan to correct the problem is to water and turn the soil heavily in an attempt to dissolve the lime, and make the soil safe.
I am not an expert however, So I came to these forums to get a second opinion.
-Is it still possible to correct this problem by planting time?
-How do I correct the problem?

Thank.
Luke

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rainbowgardener
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Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

How big a mistake it was depends on the quantity of lime. You said "dusting" of lime. If you meant that literally, I think it's not that big a deal. Turn it in and then water (IN THAT ORDER, don't try turning wet soil) and should be fine.

If you are talking about big quantities, it will take a little more work/ patience. But it depends a lot on conditions. If your soil really was pretty acidic, the lime will get neutralized pretty quickly. You really should have tested soil pH first before adding anything. You can make up for it by testing now, be sure you haven't made your soil too alkaline.

Luke2010
Newly Registered
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 11:54 am
Location: Toronto

The type of lime used was "dolomitic hydrated spray lime."
I just spent about 3 hours turning the soil and picking out chunks of lime (the lime must have gotten wet while it was still in the bag, because there were some small hard chunks of it.)
I also finally got my sprinkler system set up, so I figure I'll give it a good watering now.
Then rinse and repeat.
Glad to hear you don't think it's as big as a problem as I thought it was though.
thanks.



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