Decent soil, but a bit low in organic matter. It seems like a few bags of leaves is all it needs.

Thanks for the feedback glib....bought the house 3 years ago and took up the sod to make this garden ( so it is new),
The soil is silty loam and I have put some compost on it 2 years ago.....I am currently tending a considerable sized compost heap and plan to do what you have suggested.....do you think I should try to lower the pH a bit?

The optimal soil pH for most plants is in the 6.2 to 6.8 range so you are not all that far out. You may find, as I have that more organic matter may put your soils pH at about 7.2 bad place to be. I'd not be too concerned yet.

Thanks kimmsr...much appreciated

Ian

Optimal soil pH for most all plants is in the 6.2 to 6.8 range and you are not all that far off that.I'd not be as concerned about the pH as the low levels of organic matter, 4.3 percent. that should be in the 6 to 8 percent range. You may find that after getting the level of organic matter up the soil pH would settle at around 7.2 as I have.

Good to know kimmsr.....I did notice that when I made this garden 3 seasons ago that the soil was quite "silky" after I rototilled it (kind of like the consistancy of flour)
I added as much compost as I had available at the time to it to help with the tilth......so this coming spring, I will be adding another sizeable amount of compost to help improve the organic matter....
If I add organic garden sulfur to the soil when I apply the compost , would you think it would lower the pH or am I better not to?

Sulfur is used to lower soils pH but how much is needed to do what you want is the question. The type of soil you have, sand or clay, and how deep you want to modify the pH also need to be considered.
I would not bother with applying any sulfur.

Here is a link that might be useful: Amount of sulfur to adjust soil pH

I thank you kimmsr for your opinions.....I will take your suggestion and not bother with the sulfur...I will just add my compost this spring......

Thanks again....

I have not seen soil test results expressed in mg/L (weight to liquid volume), but usually in mg/kg. Those of you who work with this stuff all the time, I'm just curious, is this a measurement concentration in a liquid extract? If so how do you compare it to the soil itself w/o knowing the ratio of soil to liquid in the test?

mg/L is used by some labs because it's a solid/liquid process.

A certain amount of soil is added to a certain amount of extraction solution...then it's shaken (very) heavily to break up aggregates...then the liquid is sieved and the measurement is taken in relation to the concentration. The liquid is a vessel for what you're looking for and it's density isn't important.

For what it's worth, mg/L can be treated the same as ppm (parts per million) or mg/kg when it comes to soil test results.

mg/kg is used for a lot of dry soil testing (not all elements are tested for via the same process, some are "wet" and some are "dry"). To add to the confusion, it's also sometimes used as a reporting variable even if the results came from mg/L tests...a lot of it is regional or lab reporting preference. mg/kg - mg/L - ppm...they're pretty much interchangeable when it comes down to your results and what you're going to be advised to apply...even if not technically correct vs. the method used to get the resulting measurement.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Fri, Nov 1, 13 at 20:09

OK, as long as it's interchangeable that makes sense.