I'm a long time gardener but I haven't had enough time to delve into the depths of soil knowledge as much as I should. I'm a big believer in healthy soil yields healthy plants. Get your soil test and don't use synthetic products.

Now, I did a soil test this spring. We didn't need to amend according to the test. This is for a public demonstration garden where the produce is donated to a local food bank that serves 29 counties.

Well, our vegetable garden literally turned into a jungle. And I learned just how vigorous grafted tomato plants can be. I grafted them myself, they turned into monster plants. We planted Mini Zinnias, marigolds, and other low growing flowering plants along the paths because they were supposed to be small. Well, everything grew so well, they grew over the paths. The marigolds and zinnias were supposed to be no more than 12"-14" inches tall. The marigolds were 3 feet and the zinnias were 4-5 feet tall.

This garden has only had compost added every year made from the city's yard waste recycling program. No synthetic fertilizers.

I've been volunteering in this garden every other year for seven years. This season I was in charge of it. In all the time I've worked in the garden, I've only ever seen literally a handful of worms... less than 10 total. The other surrounding beds which are amended according to what's being grown in them seem to have worms.

Here is a copy of the soil test.

To see the garden, look here. There's no doubt in my mind that the soil will make plants grow. I just don't understand the lack of worm population. Can someone please explain this to me? Any theories?

here

and

here

Lloyd

Lloyd

P.S. and to ignore me! :-)

Curt :-)

for me if there are no worms then it tells me there is something out of whack, as worms are the first thing you see when building a garden successfully and has been everywhere i've lived.

check this site:

about soil and worms

mulch will play an integral part in encouraging worms as will the continual addidtion of rottable organic matter, so we use green mulches that break down generally over a 6 month period and then all spent vege' plants get tucked in under the mulch along with all kitchen scraps, and then we use our kitchen water (we wash by hand) and my wee water on the vege gardens.

mulch keeps the garden warm and cool when it needs to and also keeps it moist, all suitable climate for worms.

our worm farm is our vege' garden, we have composting worms in the garden as well as the local exotics, no need to dig looking for them just pull the mulch away and there they are. having the worms in teh agrden like that measn the benefits they create are delivered right where they are needed.

so if my garden lacked worms i think i would be doing more to attract them and the first thing i'd suggest is bring some composting worms in to get started. we use no fertilisers or manures ever.

len

I'm in my third year of gardening some beds that were heavily composted. Only now are worms starting to appear. Yields were good last year, better this year.

Collect a square foot of soil, sift and do your count. It would seem you are missing a few in the head count. Ten is a healthy population in one square foot.

I see your phosphorus levels are very high. How did that happen? Ours are high as well, due to adding tons (literally) of compost made from shellfish waste the past two years. We figured this out after a soil test.

I'm very particular about making sure everything gets mulched. For water retention, weed suppression, and to keep the soil loose.

As for sandy loam type soil, i really don't think so, but i'd have to do a water layer test to be sure.

Any gardener, and there are many who work in our bed envies our soil because it's so ideal. The native soil is red clay.

Curt :-0