Soils

I went looking for some garden loam today. I had this great idea that I would buy something with a lower pH than what is here, dig holes for the fruit trees which must be planted this week, and back fill with the better soil. Then I was going to put a 10cm layer, minimum, on the veggie beds, which will raise the beds and hopefully give some of the veggies a better start. Most like alkaline soil, but I think a pH of 9-10 is a bit much for any self respecting veggie.

Result? Soil with a pH of say 7.5 (I didn’t want much!) is like hen’s teeth around here. The landscape supply place had three lots for me to choose from, all them within the range of pH 8-9. One a loam, another, loam with chook manure added and much favoured for using to grow instant lawn, and a sandy loam mix. I went home feeling quite disheartened especially when the fellow said that they went looking for acid loam and found that it was loam with turkey manure in it to make it acid! What hope is there for we country folk!

End result is that I opted, after some thought, to get the loam thinking that at least is does not have limestone rubble in it. I will still need to work on it with manure and compost and probably sulphur. This could be an interesting experiment.