Stephen Garrett

D Tucholske wrote:If it's collecting, have you tried digging a trench beyond the high ground & filling it with rock?

I think the problem is that I used a subsoiler and disturbed the natural drainage under the topsoil. Now it pools amd stays there.  

Nancy Reading wrote:On a smaller area I would suggest raised beds or lazy beds.  At least that would keep the crops out of the wet, even if the paths then become lakes.  This wouldn't really suit if you rotavate or otherwise mechanically cultivate however.  We get a lot of rain here so that the soil is really saturated much of the time, however because there is also little flat land the water has somewhere to go.  Seems a pity to leave the hard work you've already put in to improve the soil structure.

im going to add 40 yards of sandy loam on Tuesday and rototill it in and then pull it into raised rows. I want to get to a point where I don’t I’ll any at all and disturb the soil as little as possible. Maybe this will be the fix. If not there is always next year!

Ok. Here we are 2 years later and I am still fighting the same issue. I have added 16 yards of rice husks and 32 yards of organic super soil to help with the heavy clay loam. I have plenty of nutrients but I still have the same drainage issue. I M just about to give up on this garden area and just buy more land to garden in. The only fix I can see is to remove all of the topsoil, about 800 yards of it, and slope the underlying clay pan so the water can drain and then put all the topsoil back in. Right now it’s like trying to garden in a swimming pool. As soon as it rains it’s full of water again until it all evaporates . Any other suggestions ?? I’m all ears.

Im having a issue with the soil that I havent experienced before. When wet the soil is just mush which is to be expected since its all leaf mulch but as soon as it dries out it becomes hard as a rock. I am having compost delivered to raise up the rows to aid it drainage but the pathways are a mess. I was thinking about planting a type of short leaf fescue that doesnt spread to add some soil structure to the pathways. everything that isnt planted in vegetables is getting cover crop to help condition the rest  for next year.  Does anyone see any issues with the fescue between the rows or have a suggestion of something that would work better?

Eric, what you and others have suggested is the way I’m going to approach this. I have bone meal on order, kelp and blood meal on hand and can pick up chicken litter in a couple of days. Regular manure is kind of sketchy in this area due to the fact that so many farmers in this area use Grazon herbicide and that passes right through the animal with little deterioration. I’ve seen manure put on a healthy garden and almost kill everything in it and found out later the hay had been sprayed with Grazon prior to cutting. What doesn’t get planted in garden this year will get a heavy nitrogen fixing cover crop . Thanks again for the fast and detailed responses.

Walt Chase wrote:If your extension agent is like ours you can give him, or her, a call and let them know you want organic input recommendations.  It is fairly simple to sit down and come up with an organic blend that will approximate a 1:1:1 NPK.  I would use some type seed meal or feather meal, bone meal and kelp to get the big three.  I still will recommend Oganicalc from Grow abundant Gardens as one of the best ways to get recommendations and balance your soil.

I called the extension agent that sent me the report today and he said to just use manure. I will sit down tonight and try to come up with the proper mix. I have kelp meal and blood meal on hand. I will just need to figure out the proper ratios and get to work.

I finally got my soil analysis back. Now just looking for recommendations for amendments. The county extension gave recommended non-organic methods in the report so that isn’t going to help me. I’m all ears so let’s hear it.  

John Paulding wrote:

Stephen Garrett wrote:its not 2 inches but 2 feet of leaf mold. Below that it’s yellow/red as deep as I can dig. I’m goi g to send a soil sample off this next week to get a detailed analysis of what I’m dealing with. Thanks again for all the replies, it’s been very helpful.

Ah, I misread the ' as "

That's a lot. Maybe take some of it off and till the rest in? Then use what you removed as mulch. You'd probably want to till in some nitrogen, manure etc. Yeah you might want to get it tested for clay/silt/sand percentages as well as your standard test for nutrients and minerals.

Have you been here yet? https://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/WebSoilSurvey.aspx

That will give you a general idea of what you've got. It's not real accurate for small properties but it helps. On my property there's two types of soil and the soil report seems correct for soil types but their lines are off compared to what I see here. Aside from my yellow clayey silt, I have some white silt that is dead and drains really fast. I can go out a hour after a rain, dig down a few inches and it's dry already. The solid report described the colors and said that lighter color is "somewhat excessively drained".  My yellow stuff is listed as "all areas are prime farmland" which I was happy to hear.

Did you put all that leaf mold there or did it build up naturally over time? If it built up naturally and is always wet, it sounds like it's a low spot and might always be wet no matter what's there. I've got a spot like that and plan to make a pond out of it. In the Ozarks, water can seep out of a hillside or even slight slope for weeks after a rain. When I dug holes for some poles, they filled up with water from underneath or the sides and water stayed in those holes for two weeks with no rain and it's a 5% grade there, not flat or a low spot. It was Spring and clay just seems to hold on to water when it's cold and releases it in Spring. Can't really call it a Spring thaw as the ground hardly ever freezes here and when it does, it's only a few inches and thaws within a week or three. Being mini mountains, sometimes the water can't go down due to something restrictive like rock or a hard pan so it goes sideways until it finds a place to ooze out. We had a heavy rain a few years back and I had a 2 inch hole form in my garden bed with water bubbling up out of it and that area is real close to being flat but does have some grade, maybe 2%. I basically had a temporary spring. I've got an area down at the bottom end that's always wet and there's a constant dribble of water. I don't know if it would be considered a true spring but I'm thinking about developing it like one would do with a spring - make a spring box for the goats to drink from.  

If it were me, I'd pull all but 6 inches of leaf litter off and til the rest in with some nitrogen like your chicken litter. If it's got a slight grade, you might want to poke around on the high end and see if it's wetter. You might have water seeping up somewhere. This terrain and the water flows here in the Ozarks can be a trip. Also, check myyopo.com and see if there's lots of springs in your area. You might already know about some. This area is loaded with them. Mytopo will show you springs you didn't know about.

it has a little slope to it but it’s not low. It’s just so rich with leaf mold it holds onto all the water. I think if I till in the manure, the nitrogen will help break it down. It’s probably 150 year old woodland and the leaves have just built up over time. Even in summer when it’s dry the ground is very soft.

John Paulding wrote:

Stephen Garrett wrote:.

Does it go straight to clay subsoil below the 2 inches or if you dig down a couple of feet does it change color somewhere? I'm in the Ozarks and yes, even the top soil has a high clay content but there is a different subsoil as evident by a distinct change of color at about 6-16 inches down. It goes from yellowish to definitely red clay and there's a dead pan at 18-24 inches. Hard grey lifeless stuff. In some places, it may just go from orange-red to red-red and that's still top soil - subsoil.

With my garden, I double dug it and made sure to crack that dead pan as much as I could. Not near and acre though. You might think about getting someone in there with a ripper to subsoil it. That would get rid of your wet all the time issue. It would take a pretty big machine to rip through the hard pan and you most likely have one. If there's a grade, have them rip on contour.

If it goes from that 2 inches to actual subsoil, that's not good. Not much will grow aside from grasses and weeds, maybe some lettuce. Raised beds would be best but an acre... that would be a crazy amount of work.

its not 2 inches but 2 feet of leaf mold. Below that it’s yellow/red as deep as I can dig. I’m goi g to send a soil sample off this next week to get a detailed analysis of what I’m dealing with. Thanks again for all the replies, it’s been very helpful.

I have always used cover crops in crop rotation to aid in soil health and add nutrients naturally to the soil, my problem is i am looking for something I do this time of year to help. If I wait to build up the soil using cover crops I’m a year or two from raising food in a garden. Even if I only use half this year and cover crop the other for a year, I still have half that I need to address for this spring. As far as the wood goes, I have 80 acres of trees so there is no chance of running out of wood anytime soon. This brush pile is right where I’m starting to build a barn and at the edge of the garden. I can buy wood chips cheaper than I can pay to have these run through a chipper.