Soil testing the fields
With plans of starting a crop next year, we need to get to know the soil a little better first. Finding out its current nutrient levels and PH is key to making sure the crop we want to grow (hardneck garlic) thrives. Interestingly the kind of garlic we plan on growing can handle a more alkaline PH than most plants. And as a method of weed control, we can possibly boost the alkalinity to make the garlic happy but other native weeds not so happy about growing there.
With all of this thought aside, we get to testing. We pick the spot were we plan on starting an acre of garlic. I drive over there with my tools in hand. A probe and collection tube.
This dirt will tell us all about the conditions for the garlic to grow in. We will test it for its PH, nitrogen, phosphorus and potash. We can follow up with more tests, but getting the NPK and PH is a good start.
We go deep to get a true sample of the soil below. And then we will pull the dirt out for collection.
With the dirt pulled out we can put it in its tube.
I will soak this dirt in distilled water for a few hours, but first we must pull out any little rocks or plant material before soaking.
With the soil soaked for many hours all of the dirt has settled. Now we can test.
My Rapid test will give me instant results, soon we will see where the soil is at levels wise.
I use two methods for PH, a strip and reagent.
PH looks the same between the two tests.. at a 6 that is pretty good for most plants in general. But we can boost it up to an 8 for garlic.
The results all lined up, we are looking pretty bad.. There fields have probably never been fertilized.. Or if so a long time ago and its all gone now. Everything shows depleted except for the potash. From what I have read the clay here is rich in it so good to see one of the nutrients is good. Well there is a lot of room for improvement.
So what’s next?
We need to get more nitrogen and phosphorus into the soil and get the soil more alkaline. My wood ash I have been collecting from the wood furnace will work well to add more phosphorus and will also raise the alkalinity of the soil.
Will post about how I do that soon, but for now its good to know the current state of the fields. Now they need some work.
You can check with your local extension office for a lab run soil test kit. We get them from ours and send off to get the exact numbers back. It costs but can be well worth it. I did that when I first got my garden going and it helped inform my soil additions the past years. The color match kits are okay for regular testing for general levels but I find there nothing like cold hard data in my hands.
Solid advice!
I was wondering if it is a good practice to take several tests from different locations within the acreage that will be used for growing.
Also whether frost heave can effect the tests if they are done during the cold season.
Yeah the instructions are if submitting one sample then combine the various samples into one to get a general results but it is best to submit individual samples from various areas. If a square garden 5 would be a good test of each side and in the middle. The frost probably wouldn't be too much of a problem other than the wet soil when it defrosts or digging the hard soil. This article says it is possible in Alberta.
That makes sense. Thanks!
Oh cool I will look into submitting a soil sample to get it tested.. I figured it would be more ballpark with these basic tests so if I can test it by the county that would be great.
Good to see that both methods of testing gave the same results. I’m always wondering whether these tools measure well, but clearly they’re quite good.
For to fertilising and hope the garlic crop will be good 😁🎄💙
Yeah true. I should probably get a lab test to be sure.
Hehe I hope so..
Looking that both tests showed the same results they’re more likely to be true, but I saw someone else commenting about lab results. Might worth doing once to confirm the results and then you know these tests are reliable for next time 😁
Happy growing!
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Biochar.
Basically bake everything into charcoal. Major ingredient of the super soil. After that my biggest advice would be to a bunch of sources rich in natural silica! Read up about the benefits of silica!
Getting a worm or maggot bed going and making your own fulvic acid and micro nutrient boosters?
And grow yucca! That stuff is absolutely incredibly useful!
I was thinking about biochar also. :)
Get it going! Yeah man! All those weeds can get tossed into a box to dry then get baked until they stop offgassing then it's perfect.
That gas is a power source as well.. hint hint!
Keep it up man!
This is video is a good educational resource for biochar.
OMG this begins with some communist idiocy. Wtf? Lol carbon removal! Hahahahahahaha!
This guy can string keywords together!
Just wow.
Yeah all that stuff aside they dive into some really good stuff.
After watching that guy's introduction. I don't think I can make it any farther and I just shut it all off.
Seriously Mr virtue signal vegan is just completely insane.
Since I am using wood ash byproduct it's not biochar. It was not heated in a low oxygen environment.
There's different results for different product. But it's great to drop ph. Which takes volume. Or something like that. Chemistry!
This two test tube really make you to be sure of your results. You need a nice thing to test the soil before planting. Here in my side we don't test soil we just the plant the go. Weldone boss
It is nice having these tests. Thanks man
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Good luck, man! As you said, soil values are very important for plants, I hope your method will work.
Much appreciated.. so true it's important to know the conditions of the soil.
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Good afternoon dear friend @solominer
How great that you have all the equipment to be able to measure the quality of the soil in the crop field
When we planted and needed more phosphorus in the soil, we burned tree branches and incorporated the ashes into the soil. We also incorporated it with irrigation, putting the ashes in water, and we used that preparation for irrigation.
When we needed more nitrogen, we used the coffee grounds, or the water released by the air conditioning, we collected the liquid and with that we intensified the watering of our plants.
Very successful in the new planting of garlic
I hope you had a beautiful Christmas
Yeah I hope it helps.. good to know about the coffee grounds. I may use grass clippings from our fields since we will need a lot of it..
Thanks hope you did too
Nice! Brings me back to Chem 101. Sounds like with not too much work you can get that soil ready to grow your garlic. I love garlic and it grows like crazy!
With all the machines I have here it should indeed be pretty straight forward.
Nice. We are excited to grow it.
I am amazed and at the same I am glad I learnt something. This shows the importance of testing the soil before planting anything. In fact, testing the soil should be the first preparation. It's good to see how the both methods gave you the same results.
I hope the garlic crops gets much fertilizer as it needs and grows well.
It sure is important.. many plants have certain requirements for nutrients. So knowing what your soil has to offer is key.
Thanks.. we hope so too
To be involved in agriculture is certainly one of the best things. Keep advancing agriculture and this is the future for all of us. He himself also likes things involved in agriculture, whether it is cultivating plants or other agriculture. And now I am also a farmer who is engaged in fish cultivation.
It's all new to me but it's all quite interesting on a large scale.
Oh cool. I plan on writing about fish soon about my pond.
Yes, friend. I like to see you write about fish later. It's also good that you have a fish pond. If we are close together, of course I will give you freshwater fish seeds. Because where I am is one of the centers where freshwater fish are hatched and below I spawn several types of freshwater fish such as tilapia, Catfish, goldfish and also gourami fish.Here I also often share with agricultural communities engaged in fish cultivation.
How do you add nitrogen ?
Well there are many ways but our plan is using wood chips in the soil along with grass cuttings from our fields. We will till it all in months ahead of garlic planting so the nitrogen gets into the soil.
I'd strongly recommend reading Steve Solomon's The Intelligent Gardener before doing a lot of pH changing...
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