# advice for fixing my soil



## Steve in PA (Jan 26, 2015)

First, decide what you want to do with your soil. What do you want to raise? What are your goals?

Second, get a soil test. Throwing random things (money) at your soil is a huge waste of time. I don't know what you have there, but you can submit soil samples for testing to Penn State. It is well worth the cost and you will get an exact printout of what your soil lacks for what your goal is and how to amend it.

Third, instead of thinking of your soil as an inanimate pile of dirt realize it is a living breathing collection of organisms and the healthier you make those organisms the more fertile your soil will be. Compost is great, but the wrong mix of compost is almost worse than doing nothing. Balance your greens and browns. Never, ever, bury wood chips because they will consume all your nitrogen to compost. Wood chips lay on top and the microbes at the interface do all the work.

Barring you doing any of those things, or in addition to them, go to the grocery store and get a bag of black beans/pinto beans/ or navy beans. Spread them around but not too thin and let them grow next year. Don't harvest them but at the end of the season cut them down and till them into the soil. Beans fix nitrogen into the soil and mixing them in will plant seeds for the following year as well as enrich the soil.

It took me about 5 years to get my soil to a decent state but it was worth the effort. There is no comparison between my garden/nursery when I started to now.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

SeaCucumber said:


> I could use advice on deciding what to do with a chain link fence,


If you don't want it, chain one end to the back of your truck, put your truck in low range, four tire pull and drive along the fence to the other end.


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

Steve in PA said:


> cut them down and till them into the soil. Beans fix nitrogen into the soil and mixing them in will plant seeds for the following year as well as enrich the soil.
> .


The #1 rule for soil health is to not till when possible. 

When I seeded legumes (peas, beans, vetch) in the spring, I used inoculant. I used a different brand of inoculant for fall peas and vetch. I used a special inoculant for my fall clovers and alfalfa. I transplanted patches of nodulated legumes from my parents. I have plenty of legumes and they should be nodulated.

I haven't gotten around to doing a soil test. Soil here is always very acidic. There is a lot of granite.


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## Steve in PA (Jan 26, 2015)

SeaCucumber said:


> The #1 rule for soil health is to not till when possible.


 True but if you are starting with hard pan you have to get that broken up.


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

You don't have to brake up hard pan much to get the seed in. I got my land covered by broadcasting and raking where I could.

Farmers either broadcast or sow with a drill. If they are terminating, they use a roller crimper planter.
https://youtube.com/results?q=roller crimper planter&sm=3

To break hard pan, radishes are used. I probably should have gotten radishes. I could also use dandelions for that.


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## jdmidwest (Jul 9, 2012)

Are you trying to grow a garden or a bee plot?

Either way, if dirt is fine, you will have to introduce some organic matter into it to make it a topsoil. Cover crop of clover or other nitrogen fixer, tilled under to make a green manure of organics is a quick way to improve soil. Bees can use the clover as food, soil will be improved by both nitrogen fixation and added organic matter.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

The way I improve a spot is to start piling up the lawn clipping and leaves there. It attracts worms as it decomposes. 
"Juices up" the soil while at the same time the worms are making it aerated and leaving their worm waste which is like plant gold. 
It takes some thyme. 
My dirt is already good to start with though.


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

I am trying to mostly grow soil enhancing cover crops with a few lazy food plants (elderberry, raspberry...). They will look like a meadow. I might add coppiced black locusts (legume trees).

Goals: 1. Remove dirt (off my land) to get rid of a steep slope. 2. Soil health

Tilling has been mentioned 3 times. It doesn't improve soil. Never till unless you have to (potatoes, etc.).

Watch these videos tiller people.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=EMV_omYQBkQ
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Rpl09XP_f-w


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## Steve in PA (Jan 26, 2015)

I don't understand...You solicit advice to improve your soil and then argue with the advice given. A proper and more friendly reply is, "Thank you" then ignore the advice. To each their own I guess but I wouldn't ask for help and then proceed to tell those that to help that they are wrong.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

It's not you Steve in PA.
Internet farmers know it all, I saw it on youtube.

BTW cucumber, black locust is on the MA prohibited plant list.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

Here is the Massachusetts _Prohibited Plant List_ that clyderoad referred to: 
http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/agr/farm-products/plants/massachusetts-prohibited-plant-list.html


... and yes, the list includes _black locust_.


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

I didn't know about Penn State testing. Thanks Steve. I put off testing because I broke my femur and had work to do.


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

I love to eat black locusts flowers.


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## crmauch (Mar 3, 2016)

SeaCucumber said:


> I am trying to mostly grow soil enhancing cover crops with a few lazy food plants (elderberry, raspberry...). They will look like a meadow. I might add coppiced black locusts (legume trees)


Being on the North East Coast, unless you have a special circumstance, you plot will rapidly start growing trees. If you want to keep it 'meadow-like' you will need to mow it or cut it back somehow several times a year. In my experience, species you don't want will rapidly start to invade.


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