Poo+Crappy Soil=Crappy Soil With Some Poo On It

The future weather forecast, though certainly not seasonal (grumble grumble), doesn't call for a deluge of rain, 40 mph winds, or snow (first time in 20 years) so it is time to put some money where my mouth has been recently complaining: crappy soil.

How do I know it's crappy soil?  Well truth be told, I don't KNOW exactly... I merely rather strongly guess.  It can rain 5 inches in 5 hours and within 24 hours the soil looks like its in cahoots with tumbleweeds.  There is also the disturbing fact that the soil just doesn't look like soil.  And finally there's the possibility that it could have spent the greater part of 5 years covered by magnolia leaves.  It bears mention that there weren't even weeds growing back there.  What would you think?

Well, I'm sure we're both right, however, we must be scientific about all this here at Chez Children of the Corm, so its time to bring out: (dum dum dah dummmm) THE VIALS OF TRUTH.  Apparently, if there's one thing I like spending money on, its gadgets and chemistry kits that will tell me what else I need to spend money on.

I followed the directions, something I am really good at doing.  It's too bad gardening isn't like cooking, where 95x out of 100 if you follow the directions you come up with something good.  Or at least edible...some wilted up dead husk with bugs all over it generally does not show up in the pan.

But, I digress.  It was time to know for sure, so I gathered my dirt, did my little chemistry magic and voila, all the secrets of my crappy soil were sort of revealed, in that 1991 home pregnancy test kit kind-of way.   I'm pretty sure I know what colors those were, however, it would have been easier if the test tube had just called me up on my cellphone and told me "Yes, your soil is crappy."

Here are the results.  The good news: my PH is pretty close to neutral.  The bad news: the soil has absolutely no appreciable level of Nitrogen or Phosphorous.  It does have some Potassium, however the test kits variation between low, medium, and high are not discernible to the naked eye so I'm not exactly sure how much potassium.  It is definitely more than very low or none though.

So, with those facts confirming my suspicions I went directly to big box store and bought my first soil amendment: cow poo.   When cow poo is put in a bag and allowed to sit for enough time it, of course, is then known as manure compost, a marketing term which is working dandy for me.   I have never lifted as heavy or unwieldy an item as a bag of manure compost after a month of rain.  Holy cow.

Now, 200 pounds of cow poo is still out there waiting in the car since yesterday, and its time to get amending.  I wonder how many years of this will have to go on before I can say, "I have loamy, nutrient rich soil?" 

And on an aside, I have to ask, where is Blotanical? This is also highly disturbing.