Mel's Mix Too rich?

Inca Heat 5/4/2015, 12:41 pm

Hello,

It's been awhile since I posted. I converted to square foot gardening a few years back, but Mel's Mix, I made the switch a couple of years ago. Prior to using Mel's Mix, I had great yields. Since then, not so much.

I recently had the soil tested, and was told organic matter is way too high, should be in the 2-10% range. It is well above 20%. In addition, Calcium, Magnesium, Phospherous, and Potassium are well above optimum levels.
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What are your thoughts on amending with top soil from my property, or another agent, storebought? Other thoughts? Thanks,

boffer 5/4/2015, 3:43 pm

Labs expect to see organic matter in the 2-10% range for soil. I'm not convinced they know what to make of soil-less growing mediums like MM.

I had my new MM tested this year; just a basic test that did not include the elements that your test did. My results are similar to yours. Nitrogen seems to be the one component that is deficient.

Mel's Mix Too rich? Scree102

The advice I was given was: '...at this time about all you can do is attempt to farm some of these high nutrients out of the ground.'

Since your tester's recommendation was to add N, and your lower harvest yield might be due to insufficient N, I would try adding blood meal or fish emulsion

GloriaG 5/5/2015, 6:04 pm

Hi Boffer,

When I test my beds I get the same type of results. Everything is "high" except the nitrogen. (I test my MM at home using a basic version of the LaMotte professional kit from the US forestry service.)

After talking to the LaMotte people, I suspect that the low nitrogen is a result of the density of the vegetables we plant combined with the continuing decomposition of the compost we use in the beds.

I have good luck by adding extra nitrogen several times during the season.
Hope this helps,
Gloria

Inca Heat 5/5/2015, 6:10 pm

Thanks guys, I will add some of the Espoma Blood Meal product this weekend to my beds. I have 4 4'x8' boxes I made, looks like I will be adding a good amount.

Razed Bed 5/5/2015, 9:21 pm

One of the largest organic farms in the nation is Delvin Farms just south of Nashville. The Delvins grow in 100% compost, and believe me, they have some incredible results with a CSA that numbers in the hundreds in addition to supplying produce to Whole Foods and Kroger in this area.

http://delvinfarms.com/

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