Gardening from the ground up.

With Corey

Brad and Cody.

Hello and welcome to our second video in the gardening from the Ground Video series. In this video we're going to work through how to read your Soul Test report, talk about different soul amendments such as lime and fertilizer, and discuss how and when to apply. By now we've got our site chosen and have done most if not all of the soil prep. Also our Soul Sample report has arrived. A soil sample report can be overwhelming to new gardeners, so we'll focus on the items that are most important to helping your garden grow.

In the top right will be your information in the field ID name for your sample or samples. If you send off multiple samples for different garden areas, it will be important to match up the results with the spots they are associated with.

Next, let's find our soil pH. Soil pH matters because it drives the soul's ability to hold nutrients and for plants to get those nutrients. If the pH is out of wack plants can server nutrient deficiencies. Often times with our soils, pH is too acidic to be optimum. We lower that acidity, thereby raising the pH with the use of a neutralizing material, usually ground or pelletized limestone.

That pH number then dictates what the line recommendation will be in the recommendation table below.

For our sample, the pH is 6.5 which is already ideal for most all garden vegetables, so no lime is needed further down the page on the right you'll see a table stating that the line recommendation is 0. If your sample pH comes back as say 5.5 for example, then your pH is slightly too low for most vegetables and you'd get a line recommendation of 46 pounds of lime per 1000 square feet.

Raising pH is a process that doesn't happen overnight. Ideally, lime should be applied at least three to six months prior to gardening season. But if the current season is already knocking at the door, it's OK to go ahead and apply it now. It just won't have much effect on soil pH until later in the current growing season.

Fertilizer can get a little trickier. There are hundreds of different fertilizer sources and blends that can be found in the Garden center, and that's not even including miners and compost in the bottom table. You'll see the NP&K needs. The nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

The phosphorus and potassium recommendations will be expressed as P205 and K2. Oh, we're not going to go into why that is, but just know that those forms of P&K are reported in the same form on the fertilizer analysis too. So there's no conversions you need to do.

When it comes to fertilizer sources, all fertilizers will include a 3 digit analysis number that'll look something like this.

This tells us what the NP&K. Actually, the end P205 and K2O content is for that bag.

Ammonium nitrate is 30, four, 00 therefore contains 34% nitrogen and no P or K.

Triple Super phosphate is zero 45 zero containing 45% phosphorus and no nitrogen or potassium.

Muriate of potash or simply potash IS0060, and contains 60% potassium. An no nitrogen or phosphorus.

And these are just three examples. There are many, many more that can be found on the shelf.

For our sample we need a 112 application in the crop OneNote section at the bottom. The report provides a general recommendation of 8 pounds, triple 13 + 2 pounds of potash per 1000 square feet, so that's what we'll apply here to meet that 112 need. If your soil report recommends A 111 equal needs for NP&K, then look for a source that is roughly equal part of each nutrient.

If it were to be a one to two recommendation, for example, look for a fertilizer that has roughly twice the phosphorus and potassium percentage as nitrogen.

It's useful to have fertilizer sources on hand that contain only a particular macronutrient, because we can make accurate independent applications based on our need. This is probably the part that gets most confusing for folks, so if you're unsure, give your County agent a ring and we can get you a good recommendation based on the fertilizer you have available to you.

Here's a note on miners and compost. These items can be greatly beneficial to a garden, but their quality varies. They can add a high level of fertility, or they could be nearly useless without testing. We don't know for sure.

Since it's not practical to test these for small home gardens, a good rule of thumb is to add approximately 1 to 2 inches of well decomposed compost or manure on the garden each year.

Well decomposed means that you can no longer make out what the original ingredients in the compost once were.

Do not use. Freshmen are and. Do not use my nerve from animals that have grazed across pastures that have had certain herbicides sprayed on them in the past few years. Herbicide residues can carry over him and urann injure sensitive vegetable plants.

Always keep in mind that these recommendations are given on a per 1000 square foot basis. If your spot is anything larger or smaller than that, you'll need to do the math. For example, if your spot is 10 by 25, that's 250 square feet, so you'd only apply 1/4 of what is recommended on the report. If you have a huge garden, such as a 40 by 50, that's 2000 square feet, so you double the recommended rates.

To apply a small hand broadcast spreader works great for spreading fertilizer in pelletized lime. If needed, we're going to make fertilizer applications at planting so those nutrients are readily available for our germinate ING seeds or transplants.

Apply fertilizers and low rate, making multiple passes over the area to ensure uniform application.

Lightly incorporating any fertilizer, compost, or manure into the soil with shallow tillage or even just raking it in is a good idea.

Now we're ready for plants and seed. Next up the fun part, planting will see you next episode.