I am looking for input on my new soil test results. I have been looking around here and elsewhere online, but I figured I would see if anyone had any thoughts for actions I should or could or shouldn't take.

First some background so you know what I have been up to and then the soil test for which I seek feedback.

I have been using square foot gardening in four small raised beds for vegetables (including every year tomatoes, peppers, kale, collards, beets, eggplant, zucchini, garlic and some years various others like cabbage or tomatillo). Three beds are 3'x4' and one is 2'x4'.

I started with Mel's Mix and have added my own compost each year and last year added my own compost, a year old bag of manure, a couple other bags of compost or other organic rich amendments, some many years old and well-composted sheep manure, greensand, and azomite, all in an effort to counteract compaction and decreased productivity and loosen the soil mix, which I am not sure really worked on any counts; the new ingredients were thoroughly mixed in last fall.

In the past I have used blood meal and added bone meal when planting and for the last two years have used a Fox Farms balanced organic fertilizer both when planting seedlings and once or twice as side dressing, and also a couple applications of fish emulsion as a combo drench-foliar feeding.

Productivity of fruiting varieties has decreased over the last couple years noticeably, but collards and kale certainly seem to do fine and in general plants seem healthy, just not so fruitful.

We had terribly success with direct sowing this year with low germination and damping off of most plants that did germinate. Given the decrease in productivity and poor germination/damping off (and the soil texture from the test...see below), I suspect I have drainage problems at least if not also fertility.

Now to the results and my comments in parentheses. These are from the UM soil lab, which provides relatively meager tests for the home gardener. I chose not to pay for determinations of SO4, Zn, Mg, Cu, Bo, or Pb. I would be most obliged to get any and all thoughts and reactions to the information above and that below.

Thanks!
David

SOIL TEST RESULTS
Organic matter: 20.8% (because it is basically Mel's Mix)

Soil texture: muck (Presumably because it is Mel's Mix. I plan to add some medium sand and very coarse sand-fine gravel this fall to work on the texture and improve drainage)

Soluble salts: 0.4 mmhos/cm (no concerns at all)

pH: 7.2 (I think just past the high end of ideal, so maybe I do nothing? Add sulfur?)

Phosphorus: >100 ppm based on Bray 1 extraction (this is the one that for sure puzzles and confused me...Not sure why it is so high unless it is a result of past additions of relatively small amounts of bone meal, the additions of aged manure last year (one bag of steer, two kitty litter tubs of sheep), or just from adding compost regularly. Do I do anything other than avoid manures and any amendments/fertilizers with P?)

Potassium: 180 ppm (A little high, so maybe no greensand for a year?)

Calcium: 2628 ppm

Magnesium: 314 ppm (I think the Ca and Mg are ok and the ratio is about right)

Fertilizer recommendation: 0.1 lbs/100 sq ft of N and K, but no P (seems pretty generic)

It just sounds a lot like my garden. I have great numbers and poor growth.

I'm thinking along the lines of fungus too. Do you rotate crops? Do you fallow any of the garden and grow a cover crop? These might be good things to try.

I'd cut way back on the fertilizers and go easy on the compost because everything seems pretty high. I'm not sure why they're recommending to add K if it's already in the high range.

The very coarse sand/gravel sounds OK but I'd skip the medium sand. Or you might want to consider adding something like perlite or pumice for a permanent drainage factor.

toxcrusadr: I do try to rotate a I can given the limited space, but some things (e.g., tomatoes) can only shift across a few squares in each bed given how the beds are arranged. Given the poor germination this year, I suppose parts of each bed are effectively fallow, but never a whole bed and I have not grown any covers or green manures.

gardengal48: Why do you recommend against the sand? I was thinking that some grain size variation would be helpful as I try to build up a true mineral fraction. I head read that perlite will swim to the surface over time, which is why I was not thinking of using it. I don't know that I have seen pumice around the Twin Cities...What grain size were you thinking? My sense is that the first year with the Mel's Mix was the best and it has declined steadily since then, but certainly many folks on the SFG forum swear by it!

What about mixing in pine bark fines if I can find them? I have seen some threads discussing their benefits and it seems like they could help lighten the soil, increase aeration and aeration, and, at least according to some, won't particularly tie up N. Plus they might help decrease the pH a bit.

David

There is no such thing as too high organic content. If there were, no greenhouse in the country could produce a petunia, forget foliage, amaryllis, pointsettias, etc. but the media they use is carefully blended to provide drainage...not muck.

Pine bark would probably be a good addition...a large (relatively), coarse material blended in would probably do wonders to help with that drainage.

I do seasonal containers and in my mix I use lava rock, crushed to fit through a 1/2 inch screen as opposed to perlite. You lose some of the absorption capacity, but the density of the lava rock keeps it from floating to the surface.

As far as the nutrients...when the recs for fertilizer.come back at one tenth pound per hundred square feet...you need do nothing.

If you want mineral content, just add some plain ole garden dirt :-)

I actually do have a bag of "top soil" that I figured I would add also, but I need to check it and see what it looks like first. Thanks for your input!

David