Composted Garden Soil!

[artme]

I bought some "composted" garden soil about a year or so ago. Basically it is just cane waste ( bagas? ) mixed with black sand.

I used some immediately for my Crotons and they have not done well. One died!!

I have worked out that this stuphph has two problems:

a) It is not well composted when it arrives and so the roots of the plants get burned as the composting takes place.

b) It sheds water.

I left some for 12 months and it is now reasonable but still not a good soil. I have mixed some activator with it to see how it fares.

I also think I need to water it with wetter the first couple of times.

Anybody have any ideas???

[Berlin]

Artme, my mother has been puzzling over a garden bed that seems to kill plants ever since she added composted cow manure and mushroom compost to it.

It is finally sustaining life but the remedy seems to have been ten or twelve dead plants and 18 months. :(

We did recently try to ameliorate the hydrophobia in our soil by adding coir (one of those big blocks that makes 90L). It has definitely made the soil in the bed we tried it in more friable but the best thing we have found as a soil additive for improving wet-ability is ordinary decomposed granite. On the advice of my father we just dug a few spadefuls in with each plant we planted and the effect was amazing. Where previously the water skipped off like the soil was teflon, it now soaks in nicely. You have to dig it in a bit though or it can form a crust of its own.

Mountains of well composted organic matter would be better I guess but until I have those I rely on a good pile of deco.




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[HUON]

I'm assuming you live close to a beach or two, have you thought about adding seaweed to your compost (after you rinse it)
Cheers

[Master Splinter]

Bagasse. Like most things in the process of decomposing, if it has not been well composted, it will pull nitrogen from the soil as it decays. A good shake of sulphate of ammonia will help restore nitrogen.

[brontehls]

The problem with a lot of these additives is the are one thing (sometimes not well prepared) and they take over - if you are using them to improve the tilth you have to balance them

Sulphate of Ammonia is a one-shot and just as unbalanced

Eroded granite is getting closer

the magic cheap ingredient

crusher dust from your local hard rock quarry

Seems to fill all the missing gaps - and its a waste product - too fine even to go under pavers throw it around and dig it in

Neil

[HUON]

Years ago someone told me that yarrow is a good herb to add to a compost heap.

[Berlin]

... and comfrey apparently.


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[pjt]

From my understanding of what they tell us is that the deep rooted plants (comfrey for one) bring back up to the surface the minerals/elements that have leached away to below where the shallower rooted plants can reach them hence adding the leaves of the deep rooted plants to the compost recycles the minerals/elements to the surface.
They also tell us that our soils here in Aus. are in general poor and lacking in minerals/elements, this begs the question Are the comfrey roots really tapping into leached minerals that wern't there in the first place?


Pete