Hi I just bought a miracle plant. Basically it requires the soil to be at a ph of 4.5-5.6. Every website I look up about fertilization of them says use miracid which is a synthetic fertilizer for acid loving plant. My question is if I use a regular fertilizer and then add 1-2 tablespoons of vinegar per gallon would this also make it a fertilizer for acid loving plants?
Thanks"
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rainbowgardener
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I have done it... I have this native plant woodland shade garden I am developing, but all those woodland plants like acid soil, which is unfortunately not what I have. So I have just put a little bit of vinegar in the watering bucket. Seems to help keep things alive. If I don't do that, the acid lovers just die out after awhile.
So I don't know what experts would say, but from personal experience I think it works.
So I don't know what experts would say, but from personal experience I think it works.
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The Helpful Gardener
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RBG, you can eventually break the buffering of the soil with continued acid application, but it will take a long time and probably won't hold for beans. It is easier to use foodstuffs for the soil that will tend towards acidity. Any high carbon source (wood, peat, paper) pushes towards the fungal side, and fungal is more acidic. Woodland soils tend toward acidity becuase of the steady input of browns (carbons) form leaves, twigs, bark, and fallen trees. Recreate the soil, and the pH follows. It's a chicken and egg thing; which comes first, biology or chemistry, but long story short, get the soil right and the pH follows...and stays...
HG
HG
I've watched here for an answer. This is good to know because I have blueberry bushes that must have acid soil. The 15 year old one has always been happy until this year when it showed an iron deficiency.
I never fertilized or mulched the bush so I guess I'm lucky it's still
alive.
So, should I mulch with leaves or should I compost them first and then spread them?
I never fertilized or mulched the bush so I guess I'm lucky it's still
alive.
So, should I mulch with leaves or should I compost them first and then spread them?
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rainbowgardener
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HG... I'm working on the soil stuff as much as I can, but it's a lot of area. The best thing I'm doing is planting tons of trees (25 and counting!) some of which are already decent sized and contributing a fair amount of leaves. I don't take anything away. For my compost, I use all leaves collected elsewhere. Eventually it will be more woodland type soil, because it will actually BE a woodland full of trees and leaf mould, etc. In the meantime, I have to find a way to keep things alive while we get there. The things I am planting are all natives that belong here. Unfortunately, my SOIL no longer is native.... it was a land fill and full of concrete, etc.... So I'm working on it from all different directions. Not something I ever thought about, until I bought this weird little patch of neglected city land.
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The Helpful Gardener
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AHH, concrete... there's our issue... lime based and whacking your pH but good I suspect... yes Di composting first makes the fungal side pop more, and THAT is the fix we need for acidic
SO I see no change in the game plan; introducing fungal cultures and habitat for them is still your best bet. How can we do that in a cost effective, easy to do method? A fungal compost. How can we get fungal compost cheap and easy? Keep an eye out for tree work in your area; those guys love a nice easy local source to dump chips. Someone doing woodworking (no pressure treatment, so furniture makers and hobbiests are best sources) might have sawdust and shavings they could spare. As I have siad time and again, paper is somoething you can recycle at home, and there is usually no shortage if your mailbox is anything like mine. Pikle them all up and let 'em go!
Having a pile of browns cooking down is not the most sightly answer, but boy, year two or three they will be getting nice, especially if you've been hitting them with some fish now and again. And here's the real beauty of fungal piles; no turning. Maybe we stick a few drainage pipes in the bottom of the pile to keep gas exchanges happening (PAWS), but the best thing for fungal compost is to let it be... fungal hyphae don't like disturbance (which is why you hear me beating up on rototilling a garden more than the first time). You could then brew a fungal compost tea from your fungal compost if distributution is your big issue, but this remains the right thing to do. In the meantime the acidic watering doesn't hurt the cause, but it will always be a temporary fix untill the lime washes out of that concrete (maybe decades), so let's get started with a more permanant fix... (cuz it may take longer with a base like quicklime moving the needle towards the 7's and 8's)...
HG
SO I see no change in the game plan; introducing fungal cultures and habitat for them is still your best bet. How can we do that in a cost effective, easy to do method? A fungal compost. How can we get fungal compost cheap and easy? Keep an eye out for tree work in your area; those guys love a nice easy local source to dump chips. Someone doing woodworking (no pressure treatment, so furniture makers and hobbiests are best sources) might have sawdust and shavings they could spare. As I have siad time and again, paper is somoething you can recycle at home, and there is usually no shortage if your mailbox is anything like mine. Pikle them all up and let 'em go!
Having a pile of browns cooking down is not the most sightly answer, but boy, year two or three they will be getting nice, especially if you've been hitting them with some fish now and again. And here's the real beauty of fungal piles; no turning. Maybe we stick a few drainage pipes in the bottom of the pile to keep gas exchanges happening (PAWS), but the best thing for fungal compost is to let it be... fungal hyphae don't like disturbance (which is why you hear me beating up on rototilling a garden more than the first time). You could then brew a fungal compost tea from your fungal compost if distributution is your big issue, but this remains the right thing to do. In the meantime the acidic watering doesn't hurt the cause, but it will always be a temporary fix untill the lime washes out of that concrete (maybe decades), so let's get started with a more permanant fix... (cuz it may take longer with a base like quicklime moving the needle towards the 7's and 8's)...
HG
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The Helpful Gardener
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Pine needles are also high carbon, and therefore highly fungal (evergreen needled trees tend to have C:N ratios between 50:1 and 100:1., deciduous trees are more like 30:1 to 50:1). Which comes first? Fungal or acidic? Chicken or egg? It remains a mystery as to which side leads which and good cases can be made for either (Scott is wildly handsome/ Scott is mildly intelligent. See? Both things can be true at the same time 
)
[url=https://www.extsoilcrop.colostate.edu/Soils/powerpoint/compost/carbon_to_nitrogen_ratio.pdf]Check this out[/url](skip the pics unless you are a true lab geek) But it is a very concise presentation on carbon and nitrogen in compost, and how we should mix them for best results. We can talk about this, and how it fits in with our biology model later. Enjoy.
HG
)[url=https://www.extsoilcrop.colostate.edu/Soils/powerpoint/compost/carbon_to_nitrogen_ratio.pdf]Check this out[/url](skip the pics unless you are a true lab geek) But it is a very concise presentation on carbon and nitrogen in compost, and how we should mix them for best results. We can talk about this, and how it fits in with our biology model later. Enjoy.
HG