Slightly dirty and very productive weekend - my favorite domestic goddess Finny came over for a tomato/citrus trade (her tomatoes for my lemons and Holly's limes) and threw dirt, not in my face, but in my bucket, and walked me through testing the soil in my backyard, so that I can grow better veggies.
I'd bought one of these soil test kits at OSH, and we made a mud solution - 1 cup soil, 5 cups water, and ran the tests for the pH value (acidity) and the NPK values (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) of the soil. Turns out my backyard soil is nitrogen deficient, potassium deficient, has adequate to sufficient phosphorus, and is just right on the pH side around 6.5.
I'd expected everything to be abysmal, so the phosphorus and pH values were a pleasant surprise.
Now the next steps are to calculate what I need in amendments, to buy those, add them, and work them into the soil before I plant the winter veg seedlings I sowed after the class I took.
Your soil isn't nearly as dirty as we thought. HA! Awful, I know. Next time, I'm taking you up on those beers.
Posted by: finny | Oct 19, 2009 at 01:05 PM
Oh, you know what we should have done? Silly me, why didn't I think of that! We should have tried the Mourvèdre I just bought. Would have gone great with the testing - it's one of those grape varietals that tastes like dirt. I'll make sure to drink some of it when I transplant my seedlings.
Posted by: Elkit | Oct 19, 2009 at 01:30 PM