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Lucius_Junius
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Changing the Soil

The area of Nova Scotia I live in is generally regarded as poor farmland for a variety of reasons. For one, it's rocky as can be. For another, the soil itself is not productive. Now, I know with composting and fertilizer that amazing things can be done to make soil more productive, but is that all there is to it? Does this mean that, with enough compost and labour, any patch of ground can be converted to a nutrient-rich, plant-producing mixture? Basically, if I keep pulling out rocks and putting in compost, will I eliminate the deficiencies of my soil entirely?

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soil
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imo pulling out rocks is a waste of time and energy as well as robbing your land of potential fertility. I would stop tilling, start mulching, and trying to bring life back to the soil. the worms and creatures will aerate and fertilize it for you. they just need help getting established.

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Kisal
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Yes, any soil can be improved with enough amendments and work, but it's a constant ongoing process that never ends. IMO, it would be better to simply build raised beds and fill them with good, rich soil. Your native soil hasn't been good for a long, long time, possibly hundreds of years or more, so "building it back" would be a major battle against what nature has made it.

Many people build their beds only about 12 inches deep, expecting that the plant roots will grow down into the ground itself, if they need more depth. In your case, with the ground being poor and rocky, I would recommend that you build your raised beds between 18 inches and 2 feet deep. With that depth, there should be no restriction on what you could grow. Even deep-rooted crops would do well.

You will still have to add amendments to the soil in the raised beds occasionally, such as compost and perhaps a few other things, but it won't be nearly as much work. Building raised beds such as these does require an initial outlay in money, but afterward, the cost is fairly minimal. In my view, it would be far more expensive to try to improve the natural soil ... not to mention far more work. JMO. :)
Last edited by Kisal on Tue Feb 07, 2012 4:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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rainbowgardener
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Eventually, with a lot of work. Not something that will happen in one season. And if you need to make your soil more/less acid, that is on-going effort - whatever modifying you do with sulfur/lime, will always be neutralized by the surrounding soil, so you have to keep doing it.

If you want a quicker easier way, just break your soil up a bit for drainage and then build a raised bed on top of it and fill your raised bed with good topsoil and compost. Grow in that! Instant good soil.

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:arrow:
Last edited by DoubleDogFarm on Sun Feb 19, 2012 11:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

dustyrivergardens
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very neat article I put about 3-4 inches of compost in my beds every year and they get better and better.

cynthia_h
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Amazing things have also been done in Mali, near and actually IN the deforested Sahel.

However, neither the Sahel nor the Dead Sea are infested with rocks. If our member in Nova Scotia would like improved soil in the short term (3 or so years), I'd support raised beds.

Cynthia H.
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Bobberman
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Nomatter where you live you soil can be strained and added to bought soil or bought compost manure and the mix of you soil may be excellent. You soil may have something that is good when added to composted soils. Raised beds with a mix o your soils may work great and cost you less money and a little work!

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Lucius_Junius
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Thanks, everyone. I've been working on a 20 x 50 foot patch of ground where there was a vegetable garden when I was a child (I inherited my house two years ago). I brought in several loads of composted horse manure last spring and that seemed to make a difference, but I'm also working on bringing up truckloads of seaweed from down the road (I live close to the ocean) to compost and put on the garden.

I am going to talk to my wife about using raised beds for growing as well, since I think that's a fantastic suggestion. My ultimate goal is to make much of the land productive in one way or another.

Dillbert
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>>several loads

good start - but do keep in mind, it's not a one-shot and done kind of thing.
organic matter continues to "decay" into finer and finer and finer bits until it is eventually (effectively) "gone" in human senses terms.

you'll need to add organic matter / compost type nutrients to the soil on an on-going basis.

when I 'opened' my first plot - heavy clay - I brought in a 40' semi-dump-truck size load _every year_ for three years, then every other year for the next 8 years.

somewhere in the middle of that I had decent "soil" - after 10-11 yrs I had really good soil, and continued to work in every scrap of (composted) material I could get my hands on.

dustyrivergardens
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Wow that is working it. It is an addiction...

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Lucius_Junius
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I'm certainly going to keep that in mind. Besides a household compost (which includes my coop bedding, grass clippings, etc), I'll be bringing in loads of seaweed to compost every year. The horse manure was great, but too far out of the way to justify the gas I was putting through the truck's tank.

Dillbert
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I've never used seaweed - closer to horse / mushroom country than sea coast.

how's the salt issue work out? composting would certainly leach some part away - no data / research, etc - just posing the question - can one 'over salt' the garden / area with continued use?

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Lucius_Junius
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From what I've read on other forums, rainfall will take care of the salt factor. Living close to the ocean has some advantages, and seaweed for the garden is certainly one of them. A few years ago my neighbour took his tractor and a flatbed trailor down to the shore and brought up a mountain of it. I've seen photographs of Newfoundlanders taking wheelbarrows full of washed-up capelin for their gardens too.

I'll be using washed-up seaweed that comes ashore in droves after storms. As far as I know harvesting seaweed directly from the rocks requires a permit in Nova Scotia.

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vebyrd36
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I feel for you, rocks seem to just grow every where. Mulch is the way to go.

tomc
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LJ seaweed has been used for millenia. It is a localism, but works fine.

I am wondering about your night time temperatures at the opening and closing of your growing season. If they consistantly fall below 50°F some kind of poly tunnel for tomato may be in order.

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Lucius_Junius
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At the very opening and closing the temperatures dip a little, but it is rare for the majority of the warm season. I am considering starting tomatoes in cold frames this year, but I haven't looked too much into it. Would the poly tunnel be useful for transfering the small tomato plants out of the cold frames when the frost had passed but the temperatures were still occasionally getting low?

tomc
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Elliot Coleman, the heir apparent of Helen & Scott Nearing wrote several books about growing on marginal cold sites.

Um, um Four Season Gardening may be one of his titles. your local inter-library loan system aught be able to get you one, some, all, of his and Barbara Damroche books about cold site gardening.

EC and BD works were based on heavy lifting done by the Nearings fifty+ years prior.

Definately a read worth doing in the sub-polar northeast.

cynthia_h
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tomc wrote:Elliot Coleman, the heir apparent of Helen & Scott Nearing wrote several books about growing on marginal cold sites.

Um, um Four Season Gardening may be one of his titles. your local inter-library loan system aught be able to get you one, some, all, of his and Barbara Damroche books about cold site gardening.

EC and BD works were based on heavy lifting done by the Nearings fifty+ years prior.

Definately a read worth doing in the sub-polar northeast.
Four-Season Harvest, by Eliot Coleman, Revised & Expanded Ed., 1999, Chelsea Green Publishing Co., P.O. Box 428, White River Junction, VT 05001; (800) 639-4099; www.chelseagreen.com (Foreword by Barbara Damrosch)

I've discussed this book elsewhere on the forum, but the salient point tomc is driving towards is that Coleman gardens and harvests 12 months of the year in the state of Maine. Many of the OP's suggestions are incorporated into Coleman's plans, but why re-invent the wheel? Do take a look at Four-Season Harvest, as well as Coleman's other books since 1999, and take from him what is useful to your situation. :)

Cynthia H.
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Lucius_Junius
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Thank you for drawing my attention to this author, Tom and Cynthia. This young lady was also recently brought to my attention, and I narrowly missed a presentation by her a month ago while I was diligently writing papers:

https://yearroundveggiegardener.blogspot.com/

I'll order Four Season Gardening today.

tomc
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Four Season Harvest, I was close.

FWIW Barbara D is Elliot's wife.

Artemesia
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While certain crops are very demanding and perform better with compost, hauling compost is expensive and uses a lot of fossil fuels.
The long term solution is to choose crops that are not so demanding and get nature to do the work for you.
Growing deep rooted, nitrogen fixing, and C4 plants will sink more carbon per dollar than you can haul in.
Mineral amendments are also a big key: granite dust, rock phosphate, greensand (glauconite), glacial rock powder, etc.
Use animals in place to speed up decomposition instead of hauling manure.
I use no-till and mulching at times because it is a time saver and works well with certain crops, but if used too often, it will actually lower yields.
To be able to make gardening pay, you have to concentrate on the most nutrients per dollar and time spent.
You also need to concentrate on the methods that use the least amount of time and resources.

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rainbowgardener
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I mostly agree with Artemisia, certainly about working with nature.

I love my compost. Since I make my own in bins right next to my gardens, the only hauling involved is my labor in moving it from bin to garden, not very much. No fossil fuels.

Some of us city folks don't have the option of animals in place. But I do practice gardening with as little outside input as possible, so I don't use any manure. It's not required. I use only compost and mulch, the mulch mostly being fall leaves, and wood chips. The wood chips I make my self, by chipping up fallen branches and stuff. The fall leaves mostly I collect from the neighborhood, so they are sort of an outside input, but very local, no fossil fuel.

Mineral amendments are great, but they are mostly mined products and trucked, if you are being purist about things.

I'm not sure if making gardening pay was meant metaphorically, but in any sense it isn't much of a priority for me. I grow a bunch of flowers that provide me no nutrients per dollar. They provide beauty and pleasure and most of them have habitat and eco-sytem functions as well -attracting beneficial insects, etc.

I do focus on closed loop gardening, that uses no resources except some city water in dry periods when my rain barrels are empty. I do not pay too much attention to efficiency with my time. A lot of the point of the thing is to keep me outdoors, in my garden, in the fresh air and bird song, (away from my computer!), so the time is a plus for me. If I'm not working in my garden, I'm "playing" in it (walking around, looking at things, smelling, clipping the occasional spent flower, moving things just to improve the look in the landscape, etc).

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Lucius_Junius
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Artemesia, I agree basically with what you're saying about hauling compost and using fossil fuels. In general I try to look at every expense I put into producing my own food, as my goal is not to grow food for pleasure so much as to save money. The pleasure is an added benefit. That's why I stopped hauling loads of horse manure from a stable 30 km away. Luckily, however, the seashore is only about 600 meters from my doorstep, and I believe this justifies hauling several loads of seaweed per season. What I would -really- like is a horse or mule to haul with...

That said, I'm trying to use everything I possibly can in yard and house waste for compost. As much of my property is still covered in trees, there's no end to the amount of raking I do every year, and this is all getting put down to compost along with the chicken bedding (rich in droppings) and kitchen waste (which is minimal).

I regret to say I'm not very knowledgeable about mineral amendments. Do you purchase these or produce them yourself? I have a phobia of buying anything except seeds, as part of my food-producing challenge is keeping it separate from my bank account.

Artemesia
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Since I do not live in your region I cannot say which local stores carry good mineral amendments. The best thing to do is visit around, see what they have, go back and Google it until you find the best available in your area. Look for granite dust, rock phosphate, greensand (glauconite), glacial rock powder, etc. Seaweed is great. Find out what your soil lacks and which one provides the most of what you lack without supplying too much of what you do not want. Ask for help from local experts who are not trying to sell you anything and who already know your local soil.



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