On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 03:00:58 -0700 (PDT), trader_4 wrote:

Northern CA I believe, though IDT it was stated here.

The wife seems to have no problem growing basil up here in northern
california but *she* uses potting soil (which isn't the goal here).

Here, for example, is her basil:
http://i.cubeupload.com/CCjLxz.jpg

And, heh heh, I threw some leftover pepper seeds from a half-eaten pepper
plant into her pot (she's says I am a cuckoo bird who plants seeds in other
people's nests for them to take care of)...
http://i.cubeupload.com/3R6DYR.jpg

On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 07:16:42 -0400, dadiOH wrote:

How do I get *organic* matter into soil?

You add it. Leaves, grass, corn husk, chopped up corn cobs, cow
poop...whatever. However, it isn't any good for the soil until it
decomposes. It will do that itself just by digging it into the soil
(adding worms will help too) but it will do so much more quickly if you
compost it. Google "composting".

Well, I have plenty of wood chips so I'll see if adding those will help!

On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 23:12:33 -0400, songbird wrote:

google basic soil analysis. there are many versions
of it, but one is simple enough that anyone with a
clear jar and some water can manage. it will tell you
the mix of various things in terms of composition
which is where you want to start an analysis.

yeah. The more I look, the more complex it is, but, it's good to learn this
stuff because we only have one soil geology per yard!

it looks mostly mineral, sandy, gritty and not any
clay or loam and almost no organic matter at all or
other forms of carbon.

I have to agree. Almost no organic matter whatsoever.
I might mix in the wood chip residue near the edges of this wood pile to
add some "sawdust" so to speak.
http://i.cubeupload.com/8bCVNf.jpg

On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:42:05 -0500, Dean Hoffman wrote:

Why don't you know this stuff if you had a professor who said
dirt and soil are different things? Too many years ago?
A dozen roses in a corn field are a dozen weeds. A weed is any
plant out of place.

Heh heh ... I was in the numbers business, so to speak.
All numbers. Very dry stuff.

But, I did take elective classes in college, one of which was a geology 101
class.

But, in geology, they cover plate tectonics and volcanoes and earthquake
stuff.

Not the NPK, pH, and humus of soil samples.

"Danny D." writes:
On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 04:41:42 -0700 (PDT), Pavel314 wrote:

Our county landfill sells a pick-up full of compost
for $20; my wife gets a load every year for her gardens.
Maybe you can get that locally. Use the compost to build
up your soil for planting.

That's a good point.
I'll ask the local garbage disposal company what happens with the green
bucket stuff!

In south san jose, they send it to the guadalupe landfill for composting.

You can pick up the resulting compost at the landfill (take coleman rd
from almaden expy to hicks rd)

(the coleman in ssj, not the one by the airport).

On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:42:05 -0500, Dean Hoffman wrote:

A dozen roses in a corn field are a dozen weeds. A weed is any
plant out of place.

The way it works, technically, is that Rock is the big stuff that weathers
to stones, which is the small stuff, and, over time, stones weather to
"soil" which is a complex layered in-situ environment.

Once you displace that soil, then it becomes dirt.
So, dirt is merely soil that is not in situ anymore.

There's an entire concurrent thread on this distinction over he
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!fo....usage.english

The thread it titled:
Dirt is now soil; rock is not stone
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...sh/GvvXEfk9CyQ

"Danny D." writes:
On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 07:26:08 -0400, dadiOH wrote:

I have some wild tomatoe plants from where I threw some of teh household
waste as compost. Tall plants. Little yellow flowers but no tomatoes. I
joke the bees didn't do their job. The plant already is about 4 feet tall,
but no tomatoes. Sigh.

Tomatos need cool nights to set fruit.

Interesting. Very interesting.
We never get cool nights in the summer.
You can go out naked and wouldn't even shiver.

Define cool. In San Jose, the average summer nighttime
temperature is in the upper 50's. Higher elevations (above
the marine layer) will be warmer at night. Locations further
from the bay get cooler at night (e.g. almaden will be in the
lower 50's) and warmer during the day.

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/climate/year...alen dar+Year

On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 11:23:29 -0400, songbird wrote:

the more diverse you can make a garden soil the
more resilience you have for handling different
conditions and a balance between the good kinds and
the kinds which can cause diseases.

While it's all complex, I think you summarized the problem set pretty well,
which is the more diverse you can make the soil, the better because all
sorts of "minor" good things happen, and most bad things are diluted, so to
speak.

On Wed, 07 Sep 2016 15:47:22 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:

In south san jose, they send it to the guadalupe landfill for composting.

You can pick up the resulting compost at the landfill (take coleman rd
from almaden expy to hicks rd)

(the coleman in ssj, not the one by the airport).

Ah, the *other* end of Coleman.

I go to that Costco on Coleman/De La Cruz all the time, but I do know what
you mean on the "other" little Coleman, off by Blossom Hill Road. It's a
small side street, as compared to the two and three lane (and sometimes
four, by the airport) Coleman off of 880 where my favorite Lowes is.

I remember the signs at the little Coleman saying that the landfill is
there, and the dump trucks, but I never went to the place myself.

I called them 'em up and pressed 6 for "Earth Care" and left a message.
(408) 268-1670 (8am to 4pm, M-Sa)

I tried again, and pressed 4 to get a human being.
The lady says they sell compost for $32.43 per cubic yard.

When I told her I didn't have a truck, she said they sell 2 cubic foot bags
of compost for $5.50 each.

Thanks!

On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 11:28:57 -0400, songbird wrote:

green peppers i have here don't need extra N
and will not bear well while the red peppers do
very well with more.

I sneak food scraps into the wife's potting soil when she's not looking,
and these pepper plants grew, but no peppers came out of them yet (and it
has been a few months).

http://i.cubeupload.com/3R6DYR.jpg

It seems almost *all* the food scraps grow infertile plants.
I keep telling her that her bees aren't doing their job.

On Wed, 07 Sep 2016 08:10:45 -0700, Oren wrote:

Rocky or heavy clay and they may look like this. What I meant earlier
about "ugly" carrots

https://tinyurl.com/j6qsga2

So it's an ugly carrot. I guess if it were being sold, it would matter.
Thanks for edifying me.

I looked up ugly carrots, and found some pretty scary pictures!

_What is loam soil?_

http://home.howstuffworks.com/what-is-loam-soil.htm

Apparently it's 1/3 clay, 1/3 silt, and 1/3 sand.

On Wed, 07 Sep 2016 15:53:05 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:

Interesting. Very interesting.
We never get cool nights in the summer.
You can go out naked and wouldn't even shiver.

Define cool. In San Jose, the average summer nighttime
temperature is in the upper 50's. Higher elevations (above
the marine layer) will be warmer at night. Locations further
from the bay get cooler at night (e.g. almaden will be in the
lower 50's) and warmer during the day.

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/climate/year...alen dar+Year

I can see San Jose from my kitchen window so I'm within 25 miles of the
center of San Jose. I'm just up on the hills.

So, my weather is essentially the same as yours only a bit cooler in the
summer and a bit warmer in the winter by a few degrees each.

NOTE: I would have thought it would be the *other* way around, but in the
winter, we're about 10 degrees warmer in the day because, I guess, we get a
*lot* more sunlight than you do because you're covered in fog when we're in
blue sky (the clouds are below us almost always).

I'm not sure why it's cooler in the summer. Maybe the wind but there's not
much wind, even up here, in the summer.

On 2016-09-07, Danny D. wrote:

On Wed, 07 Sep 2016 15:53:05 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:

from the bay get cooler at night

I'm not sure why it's cooler in the summer.

It cuz yer close to a large body of water! Duh.

I lived in the Try-Valley (Ptown/Livermore) and commuted to to Santa Clara for over 15
yrs. It was always 10 degrees hotter, "over the hill" (Fremont Grade), than in the
SFBA proper.

The "marine layer" comes in, at night, and cools everything.
UNLESS! ....there's a "high pressure" center over the SFBA. Then, the
prevailing winds all move from onshore to offshore, giving us those
dreaded "hot spells".

I usta have a link to a SFBA wind map, but it appears that has been
shut down. OTOH, I no longer suffer from these problems cuz I moved
to the CO Rockies.

nb

On Tuesday, September 6, 2016 at 4:19:40 PM UTC-4, Danny D. wrote:
On Tue, 06 Sep 2016 12:17:55 -0700, Oren wrote:

Testing. Loamy soil gives you Oxygen, amend nutrients, etc.

Do you think this soil is "loamy"?
To me, loamy means loose and airy.
It seems clumpy to me.

Your soil is much darker than mine, here in the desert.

Interesting. Darker? This is coffee colored. The classic rock out here is
red chert. It's really mud from the ocean. It's only about 30 million years
old, which is relatively young stuff (as geology goes).

Raised beds
are recommend here as the ground is not the best medium to grow
vegetables or herbs.

Hmmm... what does the extra foot in the air get you?
Why raise the beds?


UCLA ought to have a local co-operative agricultural extension
offices. Testing a soil sample likely would ask for samples from
different areas to get a better idea (balance). Several plastic lunch
bags with a number of tablespoons of soil to test from different
areas.

I'm up in the Santa Cruz area, so maybe the Santa Cruz UC will have that.
I'll check.

Check out the Master Gardeners program:

http://mbmg.ucanr.edu/

Cindy Hamilton

"Danny D." wrote in message
...

I have seen the wife sprinkle blue fertilizer beads on the *top* of the
potted plants, where I think, "what good is it gonna do on top?" but she
says it gets deep (I doubt it does so efficiently).

If it is time release fertilizer it works because the fertilizer is
encapsulated in water soluble beads; water from rain or sprinklers dissolve
the beads - they dissolve at different rates - and the water carries the
fertilizer downward.

"Danny D." writes:
On Wed, 07 Sep 2016 15:47:22 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:

In south san jose, they send it to the guadalupe landfill for composting.

You can pick up the resulting compost at the landfill (take coleman rd
from almaden expy to hicks rd)

(the coleman in ssj, not the one by the airport).

Ah, the *other* end of Coleman.

I go to that Costco on Coleman/De La Cruz all the time, but I do know what

The Costco at 85 & almaden may be closer for you. They're building
a new one at 85 & 101.

The coleman in ssj is completely unrelated to the coleman that runs
behind the airport.

"Danny D." wrote in message
...
On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 11:28:57 -0400, songbird wrote:

green peppers i have here don't need extra N
and will not bear well while the red peppers do
very well with more.

I sneak food scraps into the wife's potting soil when she's not looking,
and these pepper plants grew, but no peppers came out of them yet (and it
has been a few months).

Food scraps = NOT meat, I hope = are of no value to plants until they (the
food scraps) decompose and that takes quite a while.

"Danny D." writes:
On Wed, 07 Sep 2016 15:53:05 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:

Interesting. Very interesting.
We never get cool nights in the summer.
You can go out naked and wouldn't even shiver.

Define cool. In San Jose, the average summer nighttime
temperature is in the upper 50's. Higher elevations (above
the marine layer) will be warmer at night. Locations further
from the bay get cooler at night (e.g. almaden will be in the
lower 50's) and warmer during the day.

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/climate/year...alen dar+Year

I can see San Jose from my kitchen window so I'm within 25 miles of the
center of San Jose. I'm just up on the hills.

It depends on _which_ hills you're up on, and on the current
marine layer height. If you're up off quimby or mt hamilton
road, it's likely warmer in the summer than downtown. On
the coast range side, it varies, but consider that Los Gatos
is frequently 5 to 10 degrees warmer than downtown SJC.

"Danny D." wrote in message
...

raised beds will
also be likely a bit hot if they are too small for some
plants.

I don't get the raised bed thing.
What good is the extra height?
OK. So I know it's not the height.
So what is it?

Partially the height, makes working on them easier, but mostly because you
can create the type of growning medium you want. The lack of ground contact
also keeps undesireable critters like nematodes out.

On Tuesday, September 6, 2016 at 4:19:42 PM UTC-4, Danny D. wrote:
On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 12:22:37 -0700 (PDT), Cindy Hamilton wrote:

Is the not-gravel which is left still *gravel* in your eyes?

Well, it's not what I would call a prime growing medium for plants.

Did you see my lawn in the background?
I would tend to agree with you!



How do I get *organic* matter into soil?
Do they sell organic matter as such?

I just googled "compost near me" and got some reasonable hits. I
live in the lush environs of southeast Michigan. Our municipalities
collect yard waste (which is illegal to dump in landfills here), compost
it, and sell it back at a reasonable price.

You guys probably get rain, right?

Year round. 32 inches per year, almost evenly distributed at
3 inches per month (a little less in January and February, since
cold air doesn't hold as much moisture).

We don't get rain.
Not a drop.
At least from about the end of April to the middle of November.
Not a single drop.

Not really a good place for gardening, then. Even I have to
water; stuff in planters with that moisture control potting
mix gets watered every other day.


Amending soil with organic matter involves rounding up a bunch of
composted plant parts and mixing it in. Gardening in containers
is tough (harder than Mark Watney made it sound), which is why
I suggested buying potting mix. Too much water, and plants die.
Too little water, and plants die. The organic matter acts like a
big sponge, and is loaded with soil bacteria.

I looked up what plants need. They need a complex mix of stuff, only some
of which is NPK. Sigh. It's not so easy. Maybe I'll just grind up some
leftover food in a blender and mix *that* into the two 5-gallon buckets.

It needs to be "former plant material". If you put in uncomposted
kitchen waste, it could well result in anaerobic digestion, producing
methane, hydrogen sulfide, and similar unappealing odors. Probably
not what your grands want in a gardening experience.

I've got pretty poor soil; a couple of inches of topsoil over 12
feet of clay (not the caliche of the Southwest, but still pretty
heavy). Every year I plant a few dozen heads of garlic.

Hey, Can the kids plant these?

http://i.cubeupload.com/bzuWn5.jpg

Will that old garlic grow?

I buy the big bag from Costco - and always have this much wasted.

If it starts to sprout in your kitchen--or wherever you store it--
(a green shoot in the middle of the clove) then it's viable. Garlic
grows underground, and it likes fluffy soil, which is not what
you've got.

I don't know squat about growing garlic in places where it doesn't
get cold in the winter. I plant mine in September or October,
mulch it with leaves or grass clippings (so it doesn't heave out of
the ground when it freezes solid), and next spring it pokes
up through the ground. By June or July it has formed heads and is
ready to harvest.

Frankly, your conditions are suited to weedy plants like oregano,
rosemary, thyme. Lettuce might work, although it doesn't like
the heat. It gets hot, and the plants go to seed, which makes the
leaves bitter. There's something called amaranth that's supposed
to be better in the heat.

Cindy Hamilton

Tomatoes are prima donnas; practically any little
thing will either kill the plant outright or make the fruit rot
on the vine. I've tried it growing them in pots and I've given up
on it.

"Danny D." wrote in message
...
On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 07:01:52 -0400, dadiOH wrote:

I don't know where you live in California but consider the hugely
productive
agricultural area of the central valley...without water, it is a desert.

Yeah but. We're on a mountain. The agriculture is in the valley.
The valley is *thousands* upon thousands of feet of sediments from the
mountains which became the "Great Valley Sequence"...
http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/images/califxsect.gif

Like everything, it's complex though:
http://www.colorado.edu/geolsci/Reso...t_Page_091.jpg

Suffice to say all the "good stuff" is in the flat valleys.

If it came from your mountaains it is the same stuff albeit lacking your
rocks and finer.

BTW, did you notice all the stuff busily growing on your chert in the pix
you linked? Just add water...

"Danny D." wrote in message
...

I have a few good-sized piles of wood chips on my yard.
They've been there *years*.

I'll be dead before they're decomposed.

Pile them up, wet it down with cow tea (cow poop in water), keep it damp,
turn it on a regular basis (move top down to an adjacent area) and it should
heat up and turn into compost while you are still mobile. If you add a
bunch of worms it may go even faster.

On Wednesday, September 7, 2016 at 10:19:58 AM UTC-4, Danny D. wrote:
On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 09:10:12 -0400, Frank wrote:

My pots drain from the bottom into a pan and if there is water in the
pan and roots deep than I add no water.

Fertilizer will be needed and I sorta determine how much by how growth
is going. Too much all at once might kill the plant. In my opinion
some potting soils that contain fertilizer have too much fertilizer to
start plants in.

The calcium needed for tomatoes was discovered when I had blossom end
rot and calcium cured it.

I have seen the wife sprinkle blue fertilizer beads on the *top* of the
potted plants, where I think, "what good is it gonna do on top?" but she
says it gets deep (I doubt it does so efficiently).

Hence, my plan is to mix the fertilizer throughout the soil. It should be
easy to do. I just layer cake a few handfuls of soil plus a spoon of
fertilizer, then a few more handfuls of soil and another spoon, and then I
mix it all up and then put some more layers in until I can't mix it anymore
because the bucket is about half full so I finish the job in a second
bucket and then combine the tally.

Wouldn't *that* be better than sprinkling fertilizer on top and hoping it
makes it to the bottom some day?

If she waters from the top, the fertilizer dissolves slowly, providing a
constant, small dose of its ingredients. Too much fertilizer will burn the
plants, just like what happens when the dog always pees on the same patch of
grass and kills it.

Cindy Hamilton

On Wednesday, September 7, 2016 at 12:09:18 PM UTC-4, Danny D. wrote:
On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 11:28:57 -0400, songbird wrote:

green peppers i have here don't need extra N
and will not bear well while the red peppers do
very well with more.

I sneak food scraps into the wife's potting soil when she's not looking,
and these pepper plants grew, but no peppers came out of them yet (and it
has been a few months).

http://i.cubeupload.com/3R6DYR.jpg

It seems almost *all* the food scraps grow infertile plants.
I keep telling her that her bees aren't doing their job.

Hybrids.

Cindy Hamilton

"Danny D." wrote in message
...
On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 07:16:42 -0400, dadiOH wrote:

How do I get *organic* matter into soil?

You add it. Leaves, grass, corn husk, chopped up corn cobs, cow
poop...whatever. However, it isn't any good for the soil until it
decomposes. It will do that itself just by digging it into the soil
(adding worms will help too) but it will do so much more quickly if you
compost it. Google "composting".

Well, I have plenty of wood chips so I'll see if adding those will help!

You need to compost them first, same with sawdust. If you just dig them in
will use up most of the nitrogen already in the soil or added by you and
your plants won't be happy.

"Danny D." wrote in message
...
On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 07:26:08 -0400, dadiOH wrote:

I have some wild tomatoe plants from where I threw some of teh household
waste as compost. Tall plants. Little yellow flowers but no tomatoes. I
joke the bees didn't do their job. The plant already is about 4 feet
tall,
but no tomatoes. Sigh.

Tomatos need cool nights to set fruit.

Interesting. Very interesting.
We never get cool nights in the summer.
You can go out naked and wouldn't even shiver.

Here is a picture I just snapped of the tomato plant, with little yellow
flowers, but NO TOMATOES!
http://i.cubeupload.com/Si8QN3.jpg

That was planted from an old half-eaten Costco tomato.
But save for the pretty flowers, there are no tomatoes!

In Florida, we set out the tomato plants as soon as possible after there is
no danger of frost; wait too long and no tomatos. Second crop can be set
out in the fall.

On 09/07/2016 12:24 PM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
....

It seems almost *all* the food scraps grow infertile plants.
I keep telling her that her bees aren't doing their job.

Hybrids.

Decent possibility although not necessarily...

On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 16:09:03 +0000 (UTC), "Danny D."
wrote:

On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 11:23:29 -0400, songbird wrote:

the more diverse you can make a garden soil the
more resilience you have for handling different
conditions and a balance between the good kinds and
the kinds which can cause diseases.

While it's all complex, I think you summarized the problem set pretty well,
which is the more diverse you can make the soil, the better because all
sorts of "minor" good things happen, and most bad things are diluted, so to
speak.

I used to live a mile or so from the Susquehanna River in central PA.
After it flooded from snow melt, it flooded boat ramps with some great
material I collected for the garden. A co-worker would bow hunt for
carp at night and I would bury them whole in the garden. (fish
emulsion / bone meal) Had the indeterminate variety of tomatoes
growing ~ 16 feet on 14' 2X4 stakes. They weighed a pound each. Cherry
tomatoes were the size of a half-dollar. All the neighbors had fresh
tomatoes and we had jars of tomatoes sauce. Bell peppers were huge,
too. A local fish monger with give you fish guts for free if you get
adventurous.

"Danny D." wrote in message
...
On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:42:05 -0500, Dean Hoffman wrote:

The way it works, technically, is that Rock is the big stuff that weathers
to stones, which is the small stuff, and, over time, stones weather to
"soil" which is a complex layered in-situ environment.

Sort of. The size - NOT composition - of the weathered rock determines its
nomenclature...
bouldercobblegravelsandsiltclaycolloid
Colloquially, the last three would be "mud". I would characterize what you
have as coarse soil.

The fact that composition does not enter into it means that "sand" can be
ANY mineral, not just quartz.

If you want to get a better idea of the size ratio in what you have, put
some of it in a glass jar, add 4-5 times as much water, stit it up and let
it settle for a couple of days. The "rocks" and sand will be fairly
obvious. If you want to get an idea of the silt - top layer - use a pipette
or turkey baster to suck up a bit from the top layer and see how it feels
between your teeth. Pretty gritty=coarse silt, gritty but not all that
much=medium silt, barely gritty=fine silt.

Danny D. pretended :
On Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:42:05 -0500, Dean Hoffman wrote:

A dozen roses in a corn field are a dozen weeds. A weed is any
plant out of place.

The way it works, technically, is that Rock is the big stuff that weathers
to stones, which is the small stuff, and, over time, stones weather to
"soil" which is a complex layered in-situ environment.

Once you displace that soil, then it becomes dirt.
So, dirt is merely soil that is not in situ anymore.

There's an entire concurrent thread on this distinction over he
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!fo....usage.english

The thread it titled:
Dirt is now soil; rock is not stone
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...sh/GvvXEfk9CyQ

Different meanings for different sciences. It pays also to consider
that word usage is sort of like dictionary definitions. Both describe
how words are being used and not necessarily how they *should* be used.

I would say that you would start with minerals and when several
minerals are mixed together into a solid chunk it is rock no matter the
size. Stone can be removed from a rock quarry and seems to imply that
stone is serving some useful purpose as building material for instance.
River rocks are often used in decorative building material, but it
doesn't mean that they cease being rock just because they are used like
stone.

I had heard that there is a progression from sands (clay, silt, sand)
when dead boilogical material is added it is termed 'dirt' and when
living biological material is added it becomes termed as 'soil', but
then again different sciences may make different distinctions.

Danny D. wrote:
songbird wrote:
....
we also sometimes find people doing tree work who
will drop a truckload of wood chips off because it
saves them a longer trip to someplace else to dump
it.

Oh. If you only knew how many wood chips I have!
http://i.cubeupload.com/3cudHY.jpg

looks good! investigate under that pile a bit to
see how it is breaking down, if there are any fungi
in there (white strands/masses of hyphae), etc.

you won't likely need to bring in any compost
at all if you have partially decayed wood chips
available in quantity.


They chip the sudden-oak death trees and the Monterey Pines which die from
some kind of bark beetle infestation. You see the pine tree in the
background in this picture, all chopped up into blocks by the chippers:
http://i.cubeupload.com/8bCVNf.jpg

So there are piles and piles and piles of free wood chips everywhere.

great. i could use all of those in an
afternoon...


these along with burying any plant debris from
the growing season and the worms/pee/poo makes for
a gradually improving garden.

I have a few good-sized piles of wood chips on my yard.
They've been there *years*.

I'll be dead before they're decomposed.

arid climates can be like that, but you can
speed things up by digging a trench, adding layers
of wood chips and dirt in about equal measures
and keeping it moist. if you have waste water
from the sink or drains from the roof you can
use some of that and not have an impact on your
water bills... very useful stuff after a few
years.

by putting them below ground you keep more
moisture in there and that will speed things up.

after a few years plant squash in there and
keep it well watered and watch it go...


songbird

dadiOH wrote:
....
Pile them up, wet it down with cow tea (cow poop in water), keep it damp,
turn it on a regular basis (move top down to an adjacent area) and it should
heat up and turn into compost while you are still mobile. If you add a
bunch of worms it may go even faster.

worms won't like a hot compost pile, but
after a while when things cool off worms will
break it down faster. as will pill bugs or
any of the many other detritovores. if there's
any moisture in those piles he's probably
already got something going on in there. just
a matter of looking...


songbird

On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 12:56:19 -0400, dadiOH wrote:

I sneak food scraps into the wife's potting soil when she's not looking,
and these pepper plants grew, but no peppers came out of them yet (and it
has been a few months).

Food scraps = NOT meat, I hope = are of no value to plants until they (the
food scraps) decompose and that takes quite a while

My mistake for not being clear.
What I mean is that the tomato plant you see here was grown from a Costco
tomato food scrap. I acted like a cuckoo bird by burying the tomato in the
wife's basil pot with the full knowledge that I was making her feed my
experiment.

http://i.cubeupload.com/Si8QN3.jpg

In very short order, she started remarking "Did you put something in my
basil pot?" to which I avoided her gaze until I could no longer. She is
still taking care of the tomato plant, even as it crowded out her basil.

But the darn thing has no tomatoes.

We don't know why.
Are Costco tomatoes infertile?
Or are the bees not doing their job?

I did the same with pepper food scraps:
http://i.cubeupload.com/3R6DYR.jpg

No peppers either.

Are food scraps infertile?

Danny D. wrote:
songbird wrote:

the more diverse you can make a garden soil the
more resilience you have for handling different
conditions and a balance between the good kinds and
the kinds which can cause diseases.

While it's all complex, I think you summarized the problem set pretty well,
which is the more diverse you can make the soil, the better because all
sorts of "minor" good things happen, and most bad things are diluted, so to
speak.

i've been studying soil sciences, gardening,
microbiology, ecosystems, and many related topics
for many years (agroecology, permaculture and
regenerative agriculture are intersting topics ).

if anyone refers you to a university or agricultural
school you will get the chem-ag approach to farming in
mass production. many master gardeners programs use
similar materials and philosophy and it is all through
the gardening references and web-sites. it is often
expensive and damaging in many ways. much more
expensive than it needs to be.


songbird

"Danny D." writes:

On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 12:56:19 -0400, dadiOH wrote:

I sneak food scraps into the wife's potting soil when she's not looking,
and these pepper plants grew, but no peppers came out of them yet (and it
has been a few months).

Food scraps = NOT meat, I hope = are of no value to plants until they (the
food scraps) decompose and that takes quite a while

My mistake for not being clear.
What I mean is that the tomato plant you see here was grown from a Costco
tomato food scrap. I acted like a cuckoo bird by burying the tomato in the
wife's basil pot with the full knowledge that I was making her feed my
experiment.

http://i.cubeupload.com/Si8QN3.jpg

In very short order, she started remarking "Did you put something in my
basil pot?" to which I avoided her gaze until I could no longer. She is
still taking care of the tomato plant, even as it crowded out her basil.

But the darn thing has no tomatoes.

We don't know why.
Are Costco tomatoes infertile?

Nope.

Or are the bees not doing their job?

Bees pollinate the flower allowing the plant to form fruit.
In the case of tomatoes, they are most commonly wind pollinated:

While tomato flowers are typically wind pollinated, and occasionally
by bees, the lack of air movement or low insect numbers can inhibit
the natural pollination process. In these situations, you may need to
hand pollinate tomatoes to ensure pollination takes place so your
tomato plants bear fruit.


I did the same with pepper food scraps:
http://i.cubeupload.com/3R6DYR.jpg

No peppers either.

Same deal with peppers.

Are food scraps infertile?

Nope.

--
Dan Espen

Danny D. wrote:
songbird wrote:

....

What is your soil like?

mostly clay, some sand, compacted, very fertile
and good for holding moisture and nutrients but not
easy to work once it get dried out or when it is
too wet. i much prefer it over overly sandy soil
though. we get decent crops from our gardens when
others around us with sandier soils have to struggle
or give up entirely.

Lucky you that it's clay, sand, and holds moisture. I'm realizing, slowly,
that organics are the elixer of soils, even though they, themselves, don't
do anything directly.

The organics seem to have an indirect effect, like toothpaste does.

not entirely true...

they are a long term energy source, also a large
surface area, a storage medium for both nutrients and
water, a home for fungi and bacteria and many other
animals of the soil community.


Is it similar to mine?

this is an example from a few years ago of what
our soil amended with sand looks like (the light
soil) and what i use to help the garden fertility
along (worms and worm poo/pee - the dark stuff):

http://www.anthive.com/flowers/100_6775_Wormies.jpg

Wow. I haven't seen that many worms since I lived back east!
I saw a worm just a few months ago, but that was the last one in a while.

i raise them to break down food scraps and to be used
in the gardens like what you see above.

http://www.anthive.com/worms/100_718..._Worm_Farm.jpg

http://www.anthive.com/worms/100_7194_Worms.jpg

by the time i take them out to the gardens in the
spring there's about 150,000 - 200,000 worms. which
i keep 10-20 percent for restarting the cycle.

i need so many buckets because Ma cooks for quite
a few people at times and so i need enough capacity
to absorb the scraps from making a fruit salad for
50 people or whatever she's up to.

while many worm composters only use the red
wriggler composting worms, i use a mix of about
six species (i no longer count or sort them out)
including earthworms. so if i have a bone or
meat scrap i can bury it in the bucket and the
worms will break it down eventually. this is not
commonly done (because rotting meat in an organic
only worm bin will stink - something buried in
the dirt will not stink if you put it down several
inches deep).

i have all these bins here in my room, they only
smell when i'm disturbing them and usually it's
not a horrible smell. sometimes a little swampy
if i get a bucket too wet (worms don't care how
wet as long as it isn't actually swimming in
there). since i'm only four months into the
cycle there's probably only 100,000 worms here
and most are likely to be fairly small, but they
keep on going all the time. very good helpers
and keeping them indoors during the winter frozen
months means they keep on working when everything
else outside is fairly quiet.


Your soil seems pretty loose, and grainy, as I can see, in that picture,
sand grains. Mine is more uniformly NOT sand. However, I don't see
"organics" all that much in either of our soil. Just a stray root here and
there, but, I don't see a lot of organics in yours.

no, that was pretty plain unamended soil mixed with
some extra sand. clay is not loose, when dry it can
be as hard as a brick. if i showed you that same garden
now it's a few shades darker and is currently covered
by squash plants with vines about 30ft long. they're
growing in mounds with piles of leaves and other
organic matter, ashes and clay layered, plenty of
half-decomposed wood chips in there too. i still
have about half the area to do the same thing to to
raise it up and give it some things for the worms to
chew on.


But they must be there 'cuz of all the worms.

the dark stuff in the trench came out of one of my
worm buckets. i put it down in trenches where i'm
planting, it's full of nutrients from 12 months of
worm activity.


songbird

Danny D. wrote:
songbird wrote:

green peppers i have here don't need extra N
and will not bear well while the red peppers do
very well with more.

I sneak food scraps into the wife's potting soil when she's not looking,
and these pepper plants grew, but no peppers came out of them yet (and it
has been a few months).

they take a while to get going sometimes.
but can also be like what i say above. too
much N, the plant doesn't produce as much
other than green growth.


http://i.cubeupload.com/3R6DYR.jpg

It seems almost *all* the food scraps grow infertile plants.
I keep telling her that her bees aren't doing their job.

some plants need certain types of insects
or conditions to be fertile. some need other
plants (i.e. they are not self-fertile or do
much better when crossed with a relative).


songbird

Danny D. wrote:
dadiOH wrote:

I have some wild tomatoe plants from where I threw some of teh household
waste as compost. Tall plants. Little yellow flowers but no tomatoes. I
joke the bees didn't do their job. The plant already is about 4 feet tall,
but no tomatoes. Sigh.

Tomatos need cool nights to set fruit.

Interesting. Very interesting.
We never get cool nights in the summer.
You can go out naked and wouldn't even shiver.

Here is a picture I just snapped of the tomato plant, with little yellow
flowers, but NO TOMATOES!
http://i.cubeupload.com/Si8QN3.jpg

That was planted from an old half-eaten Costco tomato.
But save for the pretty flowers, there are no tomatoes!

could be pollination or temperature or a
mutation/hybrid which isn't very self-fertile.

some days when it's really hot i'll water the
whole plant to make sure the flowers get dinged
(pollinate themselves).


songbird

On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 10:19:08 -0700 (PDT), Cindy Hamilton wrote:

If she waters from the top, the fertilizer dissolves slowly, providing a
constant, small dose of its ingredients. Too much fertilizer will burn the
plants, just like what happens when the dog always pees on the same patch of
grass and kills it.

Heh heh ... I like to pee outside.
Makes me feel like I'm out in nature.

I had buried some leftover food waste spaghetti squash seeds in the wife's
mint planter, which took over, but which seems to be resiliant to my
attempt at fertilizing it with urine!

http://i.cubeupload.com/RrqvON.jpg

If only she knew ... she'd kill me!

PS: Only one spaghetti squash ever resulted, even though these things had
beautiful male and female yellow flowers (mostly female it seemed). Again,
I think the bees aren't doing their job.

On Wed, 7 Sep 2016 12:53:57 -0400, dadiOH wrote:

If it is time release fertilizer it works because the fertilizer is
encapsulated in water soluble beads; water from rain or sprinklers dissolve
the beads - they dissolve at different rates - and the water carries the
fertilizer downward.

That makes too much sense for a Usenet post!