Per-- I echo the advice to get a good soil test. Then follow recommendations of someone who knows how to read it. Taking advice from local farmers can (doesn't have to be) hazardous because most of them farm conventionally and don't have the same concerns that organic growers do.
For example, I followed similar advice from local growers to apply lime several years ago. The problem is that applying the local lime intensified my out of whack calcium/magnesium ratio. I am still struggling with this problem. I am spraying fish, compost tea and using lots of mulch as one way of responding to these problems. The hardpan interferes with your vine root growth. Adding wood chips might be great, but it can tie up the N in your soil until they decompose. This could slow your vine growth while its going on. Several months ago someone on this list posted a link to an article from a Candadian University about chipping twigs and small branches from deciduous trees and using this as a soil fertility booster. As I recall, the concentration of N in these wood chips prevented the problem of slow decomposition. I would like to try this, but it would require another piece of expensive equipment. :< Dorothy --- COYOTEHILLFARM <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Perfect Orchard -The soil > > Is it a problem having mix top soil with hardpan > sandy soil ? > If it is a problem what do you do to fix it ?? > > And after adding "calcium" (local farmer recommend 2 > ton to the acre) > do we need to add this stuff every year ? > > In this perfect orchard what do we do ? with mulch > and added green > manure/compost ? > I like to add 2/4 inch of wood chips in a strip 3 > foot wide to promote soil > life and to limited weed growing ? > > Per Garp?NH > > Please bear with me I'm many emails behind. > __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
