Meadowlark
Member
- Location
- East Texas
- Hardiness zone
- 9a
JULY
The starting point for July is the regrown Sunn Hemp cover crop which had been previously subjected to manual “chop and drop” to add organic matter to the depleted soil. The Sunn Hemp quickly regrew to another dense stand of green matter as shown below.
On July 5, the next step in this demonstration, green manure application, was completed manually in the HK container. This step takes only about 1 minute to manually turn the green manure into the container soil using a gardening trowel as shown below:
By July 18, the green matter in the HK container soil was assimilated into the soil by naturally occurring actions. The soil testing sample was taken on this day exactly 6 weeks from inception and mailed to the lab for analysis.
Normally, I allow 12 weeks to complete replenishment in the full garden using Sunn Hemp but we’re going to test this HK container soil at 6 weeks and see what if anything has been accomplished.
6 Week Soil Test Results:
The soil test results for the 6 week point of the demonstration are in and show tremendous improvement in the initially depleted HK container soil (see Table 2 below).
Of the 14 nutrients tested after 6 weeks, 12 were at or above optimal with only Nitrogen now slightly below optimal and Boron remaining Low.
Specifically, in the 6-week time period, nitrogen is up 682%, phosphorus up 69%, potassium up 1146%, sulphur up 33%, magnesium up 116%, iron up 1263%, manganese up 227%, and zinc up 54.%. Other elements were essentially unchanged. The nutrient density score increased by 83%.
These are outstanding results IMO demonstrating that indeed even a small container’s soil can be replenished in situ with the application of traditional organic gardening techniques of compost addition, cover crops, crop rotation, chop and drop, and green manure application. Just a handful of seeds and time is all that is required.
This container’s replenished soil is now certainly more than good enough to grow any vegetable except perhaps Brassicas without need for any supplements. To grow Brassicas, the soil will need to be treated with a Boron supplement. This is standard procedure for me to treat any of my soil with a Boron supplement around any Brassicas planted because all my garden soil is always low in that element and I have not found any cover crop which adds it to the soil.
The demonstration was completely successful. It also showed me that I need to measure my usage of the home-grown composted cow manure in soil replenishment with high readings in Iron, Ammonium, Potassium, and Phosphorus.
I will complete another round of green manure application just to bump up the nitrogen level slightly further and perhaps achieve more balance in the soil nutrients. Simply by extrapolating the progression of the nitrogen numbers to this point, 8 weeks total should be sufficient to move nitrogen above the optimal level. I’m not inclined to run another soil test because it is totally unnecessary at this point having achieved soil replenishment.
The container is now covered in mulch while the soil incorporates another round of green manure.
The soil test data, in ppm is shown below for the initial and 6-week results.
Table 2.
The starting point for July is the regrown Sunn Hemp cover crop which had been previously subjected to manual “chop and drop” to add organic matter to the depleted soil. The Sunn Hemp quickly regrew to another dense stand of green matter as shown below.
On July 5, the next step in this demonstration, green manure application, was completed manually in the HK container. This step takes only about 1 minute to manually turn the green manure into the container soil using a gardening trowel as shown below:
By July 18, the green matter in the HK container soil was assimilated into the soil by naturally occurring actions. The soil testing sample was taken on this day exactly 6 weeks from inception and mailed to the lab for analysis.
Normally, I allow 12 weeks to complete replenishment in the full garden using Sunn Hemp but we’re going to test this HK container soil at 6 weeks and see what if anything has been accomplished.
6 Week Soil Test Results:
The soil test results for the 6 week point of the demonstration are in and show tremendous improvement in the initially depleted HK container soil (see Table 2 below).
Of the 14 nutrients tested after 6 weeks, 12 were at or above optimal with only Nitrogen now slightly below optimal and Boron remaining Low.
Specifically, in the 6-week time period, nitrogen is up 682%, phosphorus up 69%, potassium up 1146%, sulphur up 33%, magnesium up 116%, iron up 1263%, manganese up 227%, and zinc up 54.%. Other elements were essentially unchanged. The nutrient density score increased by 83%.
These are outstanding results IMO demonstrating that indeed even a small container’s soil can be replenished in situ with the application of traditional organic gardening techniques of compost addition, cover crops, crop rotation, chop and drop, and green manure application. Just a handful of seeds and time is all that is required.
This container’s replenished soil is now certainly more than good enough to grow any vegetable except perhaps Brassicas without need for any supplements. To grow Brassicas, the soil will need to be treated with a Boron supplement. This is standard procedure for me to treat any of my soil with a Boron supplement around any Brassicas planted because all my garden soil is always low in that element and I have not found any cover crop which adds it to the soil.
The demonstration was completely successful. It also showed me that I need to measure my usage of the home-grown composted cow manure in soil replenishment with high readings in Iron, Ammonium, Potassium, and Phosphorus.
I will complete another round of green manure application just to bump up the nitrogen level slightly further and perhaps achieve more balance in the soil nutrients. Simply by extrapolating the progression of the nitrogen numbers to this point, 8 weeks total should be sufficient to move nitrogen above the optimal level. I’m not inclined to run another soil test because it is totally unnecessary at this point having achieved soil replenishment.
The container is now covered in mulch while the soil incorporates another round of green manure.
The soil test data, in ppm is shown below for the initial and 6-week results.
Table 2.
| Nutrient | Initial Results,ppm | 6 Week Results,ppm | % Change |
| Total Nitrogen (N) | 3.21 | 25 | +682% |
| Nitrate (NO3-N) | 1.64 | 4.8 | +196% |
| Ammonium (NH4-N) | 1.58 | 20 | +1150% |
| Phosphorus (P) | 45.25 | 76 | +69% |
| Potassium (K) | 6.87 | 86 | +1146% |
| Sulfur (S) | 9.8 | 13 | +33% |
| Calcium (Ca) | 460.86 | 319 | -30% |
| Magnesium (Mg) | 18.45 | 40 | +116% |
| Sodium (Na) | 15.69 | 27 | +72% |
| Iron (Fe) | 1.12 | 15 | +1263% |
| Manganese (Mn) | 5.54 | 18 | +227% |
| Zinc (Zn) | 0.52 | .8 | +54% |
| Copper (Cu) | 0.07 | 0.06 | -14% |
| Boron (B) | 0.09 | 0.04 | -55% |
| Other: pH | 6.6 | 6.5 | -1% |
| Other: Nutrient density | 51% | 94% | +83% |
