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in-ground Dead ground

W

wordwiz

If you recall, earlier this spring I posted some questions about what appears to be a dead area in my garden. This picture was taken yesterday evening; it is the "lushest" part of that area. Three feet down from that spot, the potatoes and cucumbers are doing great and my potatoes - in the most barren spot, are between 3-4 feet tall, although I'm adding part of this dirt along with peat and cow manure each week. I also used it, along with potting soil, topsoil and the peat for my pepper containers. I think its inability to hold moisture is why nothing grows well in it.

dead.jpg


Mike
 
Wow! Looking at the top of the soil and the types of weeds I can recognize, that is extreamly dry.

If you want to add this area to your overall garden space, I recommend a cover crop started in late summer and tilled under in the spring about 1-2 weeks before planting seeds. I'd also till under peat, topsoil, and manure at that time too.

I'm planning on using this: Johnny's Fall Green Manure Mix
Looks like it'll give me a good variety of stuff.
 
Poisonette,

I plan on something similar. This year and next year, I will continue to remove the top six-eight inches of dirt for containers, which will be mixed with peat, potting soil, etc. I will also continue to accumulate compost and plant hay this fall and next fall. By then, I should have accumulated about 10 cubic yards of mixed soil/compost that I will fill the area in with. I would add some clay but IME, it simply does not mix well - it comes to the top.

Mike
 
Ya know, looking at that pic from a little distance..you can see that it's unaturally round. Now, I know some fungi do that..but maybe some kinda storage tank or other nasty had been there? IDK...seems odd to me.

Ever check for radon or other radiation? I know that's a stretch, but you never know.
 
Quad,

Never had the ground checked for anything. One thing that baffles me is why 10 feet away, the dirt is as fertile as can be. Plus the dirt, once mixed with something to help it hold moisture is great.

Another thing, and I don't know if this plays a factor or not. I've always known water to develop algae if it is kept in a bottle and exposed to sunlight. Close to three months ago, I collected a half quart of dirt from the area and added enough water to check the omposition of it. It sits in a quart jar in a window with a Baggie over it (with a rubberband around it). Besides the fact that the dirt is at least 99 percent silt, no algae has formed, even though it has a tiny amount of dead roots and such in it.

Is this normal?

Mike
 
Mike....how big is this area again...you said once but I am to lazy to search for the answer :lol:
 
BurritoMan said:
If it were me I'd take a sample from the middle of that and have it tested at a soil test lab.
Click to expand...

+1

Local Ag Dept. shoudl suffice. Or a UNI's if ya dont have that.
 
Aaron,

I'm in Cincinnati. The Master Gardening Program in Hamilton County sucks. I have tried contacting them several times about having programs during the fair and they don't return calls or e-mail. I've even tried going through some people who do communications for the OSU Extension Service and the most I have received from them is an e-mail saying the message has been forwarded.

Mike
 
Mike...something caught my eye on one of your previous posts...you said even no algae grew in the jar you had the dirt and water in...they might not be big enough to see with the naked eye but there should be rotifers or some other single celled organism in the water/dirt combination wouldn't you think?....

I asked you about a house fire on that spot when we first talked about this and I keep on thinking it is an old ash pile for some reason....I know that where a fire has been burned over and over, nothing grows there for years....could it be the silt you are referring to is actually ashes? Maybe an old trash burn pile the settlers used? Just throwing out ideas...
 
AlabamaJack said:
Mike...something caught my eye on one of your previous posts...you said even no algae grew in the jar you had the dirt and water in...they might not be big enough to see with the naked eye but there should be rotifers or some other single celled organism in the water/dirt combination wouldn't you think?....

I asked you about a house fire on that spot when we first talked about this and I keep on thinking it is an old ash pile for some reason....I know that where a fire has been burned over and over, nothing grows there for years....could it be the silt you are referring to is actually ashes? Maybe an old trash burn pile the settlers used? Just throwing out ideas...
Click to expand...

I had typed a reply to this before but it appears the Hyperspace Pirates intercepted it.

I would think algae should grow but if there is absolutely no nuits in the soil at all, and it is completely dead and devoid of life, perhaps that is why.

As for the ashes - I've lived here for more than 20 years and before we had a swimming pool, that area would grow stuff - not very good but grass grew well enough to need mowed. The only place nothing really grew was next to the huge tree and that's probably because it shaded the area.

As for ashes - we used to burn tobacco beds to kill weed seeds. Build a blazing fire in a huge metal sled lined with fence and let it sit in spot for upt to 20 minutes, then drag it forward another eight feet. It left a huge amount of ashes and embers behind. A couple of days later, we would rake the bigger embers off and sow tobacco seed in it. The seeds did great.

Another thing. My compost pile is in the very deadest part. One side of it I emptied this spring. It is loaded eith very healthy volunteer tomato and mustard plants. The spot was covered in dead plants, grass, leaves, etc., from last spring to this spring, though I turned the pile into another bin once or twice last year. I doubt it had more than a half-inch of compost left on top but I'm sure nuits leeched into the ground all year long.

I also used this same dirt in my potato cages and pepper pots, adding potting soil, peat with cow manure, topsoil and ferts to it.

That's why I think the problem is that something - maybe a dozen years of backwashing the swimming pool into that area, destroyed or washed away all the nuits. Combine that with the amount of tree roots in the soil, many near the top and it might be an explanation.

Mike
 
Hey AJ,

I just went out to check on my cukes - I'm still trying to train a couple of them to grwo up a rope, and wandered over to the volunteer tomatoes. After I pulled out the smaller ones, there are still ten plants left in a 24"x 18" space. My first instinct is to thin them (I did pull up some smaller plants and added them to the compost pile) but my next thought is to let them be. These are all volunteers and several have blooms, several blooms. So my thinking is to let them grow and see the results. There are a couple on the periphery I will transplant, but I have probably 60 other plants, so they are not that important.

My thinking is to treat them like every other plant in the garden - water them the same, fertilize them the same, and see what they produce.

One other thing I found quite interesting - I was pulling up weeds that have developed and grown large enough (a foot or so) to add to my compost pile. I pulled up this one weed and it had a tap root - I'm not kidding, of over 2 feet. That tells me the soil is extremely loose and that the plant is seeking moisture. I can't add clay to the soil - it sits on the top and doesn't integrate, no matter how much I till the soil.

This is going to be a 2-year poject, but if I can transform close to 350 sq. ft. of ground into something productive, I can get away from container growing.

Mike
 
I hear you about the more gardening space Mike...

did you have a DE filter on your pool?...if you did and this is your flush area...do you think it would be possible that this is due to the buildup of DE in the soil from your drain water?...since the DE is so fine a dust I don't know how deep into the soil it would integrate on its own without mechanical means...
 
AJ,

No on the filter. The pool came with one of those round filters made of some kind of a cloth-like material, much like an air filter, but it didn't work that great. We mostly kept the ph balanced, added some chems almost daily, nuked it with Shock It when it would turn green. Used some diatomasious earth over the years, but probably less than a pound, based on how much is left in the bag!

But get this - a foot away from the dead part of the garden, my cukes are doing great. It's like part of this ground has a dividing line - above it, nothing grows, below it everything does. No doubt, some of the pool water was emptied on the soil that now produces great plants.

I admit it, I'm stumped.

Mike
 
Alien life form?

Just to make a liar out of me, the water has now started to turn a little green. But it has some - er, silver bells - growing in it. They are somewhat hard to photograph but these pix should give you an idea of what they look like.

jar1.jpg


jar4.jpg


It's hard to see from the pix (and with the naked eye is ain't easy) but it appears they are growing on some kind of a stem - they are not floating on the top or laying on the dirt. Today is the first day I have seen them, perhaps because I don't check the water frequently.

Crossing my fingers my dead ground actually produces some rare and valuable meteal or element that is worth millions of dollars per gram!

Mike
 
if those little silver balls were on the bottom I would say it is mercury...but since they are on the top, I don't thik the density of the material is that high...
 
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