[AG] Soil Conditioning

[Linda A. Guy]

I may be old-fashioned, but I believe that Mother Nature is a powerful
energy that can take care of herself well; quite well if we assist a
bit. I've never been overly concerned about construction detritus....A
few years back I converted a old common bermuda lawn, and turned up
construction slag, nails, etc from when the house had been built in
1955. No real harm had seemed to come to any of the plant material, old
or new.

I'd start by raking out the big chunks of whatever is left, put in at
least 4 to 6 inches of compost material and water very very well. Let
the material cook in the soil at least two weeks before planting. For
the kind of soil we have and the kind of gardening it appears you want
to do, adding organic material is the single best thing you can do,
besides leaching with water.

I only use compost and basic organic fertilizers so I'm not familiar
with OMNI. I do know that we don't often recommend gypsum, and you can
read about it in our publication on nutrients at
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/az1020.pdf

Linda Guy
Master Gardener

ClaireASP@aol.com wrote:

> arid_gardener
> I have just recently had an old,plain block wall fence stuccoed and painted. Unfortunately this is an area where I plant flowers along it, in the Spring and the Fall.I didn't plant any flowers this past Fall, because I knew that we were going to do this project. But I would like to plant flowers again this Spring. I always amend my soil with OMNI, Bone Meal,and gypsum before planting my flowers. What I would like to know; Should I do anything else to the soil, since it has been exposed to all the cement and paint chemicals. Naturally, alot of that stuff gets watered into the soil.I hope that you have a suggestion.Thanks!             h
>
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