Soil Test Results

 Last week, Dad and I took soil samples from one of the fields in the bottoms, and from the garden.

  
Then we sent Daniel, my brother, in with the dirt and some money to drop off at the local University of Missouri Extension office where they send off for soil samples. The results came yesterday.

 The garden looks pretty healthy. We're a little low on Calcium, and the ph is a little low, but overall looks fairly healthy.

 Keep these graph lines in mind when you look at the following photos which are of the soil report for the field.

 Majorly lacking. In addition to the dry years we've had recently, the poor soil is a major factor in the low number of hay bales we've baled.

The soil lab gave us two copies of the reports. We're guessing we take one copy to the local fertilizer place, CO-OP, so they can mix us up a cocktail for the field.

Here's to hoping they don't laugh at us and our poor soil...

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Home Soil Test and Garden Report 07.31.11

 A couple years ago we bought a home soil test kit, Mosser Lee Soil Testing Kit. It probably came from Lowe's or Ace. The last two years there's been lower productivity in our garden, so I dug out the test kit...

 Looks like we're ok on PH, nitrogen and potassium. The potassium is supposed to be looked at over top of the black squares on the far right.  The phosphorus is so low it doesn't even have a tinge of blue!

I did a lot of researching and I'll add some bone meal at planting time next spring.

Today in the garden, I pulled up the rest of the European Mesclun Salad mix and the kohlrabi and put it in the compost bin. I only got two kohlrabi that were decent enough size to eat.
I planted a fall crop of greens and carrots, and spread around some winter wheat/clover seed in the empty areas of the garden.
I pulled up the green beans because they still hadn't bloomed and were taken over by spider mites. I sprayed them last week and I thought they would come out of it but then the spider mites came back with a vengeance.

From the garden down at Terry's I harvested 3.5 oz of banana peppers.


Inside, I planted lots of herbs and put them on the seedling heat mat so they'll start germinating. Once they get big enough, I'll transplant them and put them in the greenhouse for the winter.

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