First time posting... need help!

[Chirpy]

I've included a picture of my wonderful garden. It's almost six weeks since I planted... notice the beautiful green vegies growing?

Ok, so I confess ... my name is Chirpy and I'm a garden killer. I have no green thumb at all. I can barely keep cactus alive.

However, we've grown a garden here for several of the last six years and gotten a good amount of vegies. At least, everything I've planted has sprouted and grown, not a huge yield but we did get food.

I actually believe I know what my mistake was this year. I took the pine shavings directly from my chicken coop (I use the DLM so they've piled up for a year but didn't compost as they've been on a wood floor.) and put them into the garden. (That was my husbands idea but I didn't know any better to say that we shouldn't.)

I believe the shavings were too acidic for our soil and thus, killed the seeds I planted.

Now, I need help from you wonderful, knowledgeable people on how to fix it for next year. We used the tiller to till everything together so it's impossible to rake out the pine shavings. I had also added composted llama poo which should help but how do I neutralize the acidic shavings?

 

[patandchickens]

Pine shavings are not typically that acidic. POO is somewhat acidic, but more than that it is high-nitrogen... my first guess would lean more to 'things died of N poisoning" than a pH issue.

Get one of the cheapie little test kits from the store, follow the directions exactly, and see what it says. THey are not super accurate but should suffice to tell you whether you have grossly too much N or grossly way acidic soil or what.

Unfortunately, if your problem is nitrogen there may not be a lot you can do this year (without buying large amounts of soil). If the problem does turn out to be just a pH issue you could lime the soil, but I really dunno whether or not the results would be swift enough to let you get much of any crop off it this year.

You're SURE that the problem wasn't seeds getting et by birds or voles, or under/overwatering, or the soil surface crusting over so seeds couldn't get through, or the top thin layer that was covering the seeds getting washed away in a rainstorm or something like that?

I think if it were me I would do the store N and pH tests, and then unless the tests told me something really scary I would do some speed-shopping for the (relatively) healthiest-looking last remnant plants I could find at stores (tomatoes, EARLY peppers, that sort of thing), and plant them and hope for a crop.

It is probably no consolation that your soil will be in better shape next year from what you've done

Condolences and good luck,

Pat

 

[Chirpy]

Thanks Pat. You gave me good ideas that I hadn't thought about.

 

[akyramoto]

I have a question about the chicken poo - if you compost it, does the nitrogen level go down?

btw your garden area is huge! I wish the seeds would've started

 

[Tutter]

I don't remember if it's less, or not, but there's plenty when it's composted, and the fresh stuff is too hot for most purposes, so it's kind of a moot point.

It might be interesting to test the new with the composted, though. Although it may not be fair, if one were adding things to it for the compost, which naturally "waters it down."

Good question!

 

[ccrecelius]

Pine shavings are not typically that acidic. POO is somewhat acidic, but more than that it is high-nitrogen... my first guess would lean more to 'things died of N poisoning" than a pH issue.

Get one of the cheapie little test kits from the store, follow the directions exactly, and see what it says. THey are not super accurate but should suffice to tell you whether you have grossly too much N or grossly way acidic soil or what.

Unfortunately, if your problem is nitrogen there may not be a lot you can do this year (without buying large amounts of soil). If the problem does turn out to be just a pH issue you could lime the soil, but I really dunno whether or not the results would be swift enough to let you get much of any crop off it this year.

You're SURE that the problem wasn't seeds getting et by birds or voles, or under/overwatering, or the soil surface crusting over so seeds couldn't get through, or the top thin layer that was covering the seeds getting washed away in a rainstorm or something like that?

I think if it were me I would do the store N and pH tests, and then unless the tests told me something really scary I would do some speed-shopping for the (relatively) healthiest-looking last remnant plants I could find at stores (tomatoes, EARLY peppers, that sort of thing), and plant them and hope for a crop.

It is probably no consolation that your soil will be in better shape next year from what you've done

Condolences and good luck,

Pat

I want to adopt Pat!

 

[Tutter]

Will you let her come on regularly and post?