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Sand, Silt and Clay
- Thread starter wordwiz
- Start date
AlabamaJack
eXtreme
I have been thinking Mike...from what you described about finding a fireplace and bits of stuff....I will bet you a dollar to a donut there was an old house or homestead that sat on that spot many years ago and it burned to the ground leaving nothing but ashes....from the size you are describing, that would fit an 18th or early 19th century home...
you think this is a possibility?
you think this is a possibility?
Chiliac, I'm bound and determined to try a couple of plants in that soil but in a container. It may take me a couple of months to get this soil built up but by then I will have some late peppers large enough to transplant. If early experiements show the soil improving, I may try using some of the dirt in "some" of the peppers. I've got about 45 different types so if a couple do not produce, it's not a big deal. I'll also be able to find out if mixing in potting soil/mulch and fertilizer will put the soil back into condition. The area is about a third of my available area so I need to fix it.
Potawie, the other soil is about 6.5-6.7. Not a whole lot of nutrients in any of it, but I can fix that. Wheat is a fantastic cover crop!
AJ, this house was built in the early 1900s. If you divide the property into thirds, the ashes were found at the end of the second third. Of course, it was long ago and streets may have moved but the dead spot is furthest from the road. It really seems unlikely that area suffered a fire.
This area was largely carved by the glaciers that moved through millenia ago. We don't know the neighbors who own the property behind us - it has been owned by probably eight different people in the last 20 years, almost all of them slumlords. When I first moved here, a really neat guy rented the top story. He was, actually, a rocket scientist. Worked for NASA but some of his job started getting into designing rockets to deliver bombs instead of space exploration. He quit.
Was talking with him once about using solar heat to warm my pool. The guy calculated the area of the roof I had, the size of the pool and number of gallons of water it had, the average daily temperature, flow of the water through the solar panels, the warming that would occur naturally - the whole shebang! He ended up moving a couple of years later because his son had MS and could not get up and down the steps. He was the only person I ever rode with that would take his car out of gear at a stop light (manual transmission).
I talked with my other neighbor who has lived here for years and years and he cannot ever remember there being anything back there. But he has a spot in his yard - pretty much parallel to mine, where he has trouble growing anything.
Mike
Potawie, the other soil is about 6.5-6.7. Not a whole lot of nutrients in any of it, but I can fix that. Wheat is a fantastic cover crop!
AJ, this house was built in the early 1900s. If you divide the property into thirds, the ashes were found at the end of the second third. Of course, it was long ago and streets may have moved but the dead spot is furthest from the road. It really seems unlikely that area suffered a fire.
This area was largely carved by the glaciers that moved through millenia ago. We don't know the neighbors who own the property behind us - it has been owned by probably eight different people in the last 20 years, almost all of them slumlords. When I first moved here, a really neat guy rented the top story. He was, actually, a rocket scientist. Worked for NASA but some of his job started getting into designing rockets to deliver bombs instead of space exploration. He quit.
Was talking with him once about using solar heat to warm my pool. The guy calculated the area of the roof I had, the size of the pool and number of gallons of water it had, the average daily temperature, flow of the water through the solar panels, the warming that would occur naturally - the whole shebang! He ended up moving a couple of years later because his son had MS and could not get up and down the steps. He was the only person I ever rode with that would take his car out of gear at a stop light (manual transmission).
I talked with my other neighbor who has lived here for years and years and he cannot ever remember there being anything back there. But he has a spot in his yard - pretty much parallel to mine, where he has trouble growing anything.
Mike
An update - the dead area simply will not hold moisture. We had a 1/2 of rain Wednesday with another 2 inches Thursday. Yesterday, I could dig down three inches and the dirt fell apart.
I'm slowly removing the top of it and mixing it with potting soil, peat with cow manure and topsoil and putting that around my potatoes. They seem to love the mixture - they grew more than eight inches last week. I also put a couple of inches of it at the bottom of my pepper containers, plus filling up the container. In other words, put the mixture at the very bottom, add a layer of new topsoil, put the plant in and add nothing but top soil until the roots (usually about five inches tall) are covered, add a layer of potting soil then cover to the bottom leaves with the dead dirt.
I hope, over time, to remove eight inches of dirt and then replace it with the combo from above and compost.
Mike
I'm slowly removing the top of it and mixing it with potting soil, peat with cow manure and topsoil and putting that around my potatoes. They seem to love the mixture - they grew more than eight inches last week. I also put a couple of inches of it at the bottom of my pepper containers, plus filling up the container. In other words, put the mixture at the very bottom, add a layer of new topsoil, put the plant in and add nothing but top soil until the roots (usually about five inches tall) are covered, add a layer of potting soil then cover to the bottom leaves with the dead dirt.
I hope, over time, to remove eight inches of dirt and then replace it with the combo from above and compost.
Mike