Hi everyone I was considering using soil from land that is near a couple of oyster middens, my thought process on this is That the dirt near an old indian deposit of oyster middens/ shells would have a higher alkaline content than the naturally acidic soil of maine, I would like to hear peoples thoughts and opinions about this and how viable it would be to use some of this to mix with my compost and other sources of natural soil.?
Thank you for your time and input
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You probably will find nutrient rich soil under your feet.
Only trial and error, or expensive lab testing, will tell you what you have and how it would be of benefit to your garden.
If you have some extra bag seeds, sprinkle them in the soil and see if they fly. Is the plant life rich in the area you are considering harvesting soil from?
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Yes it appears to be quite fertile and the location is adjacent to the old tidal line of the coast…so i would imagine it contains a fair amount of seaweed/kelp/ marine Life compost…I have no seeds currently to speak of, so any experimenting will have to wait for a while. Thank you very much for your input.
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The source of Fulvic Acid.
I would encourage you to utilize this soil to compliment your grow.
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my plan was to go dig a few bucketfulls of “said” soil, sift ,and then deposit and spread between two sheets of black 6 mil plastic sheeting and cook for a couple of weeks and then mix with my existing compost and maybe a couple of bags of “roots organic” base soil…I feel the mixture of these three components and a drainage agent would make a pretty complete soil…??
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Why would you sterilize it, fear of bugs?
If it is from an ancient ocean line, microbial life will reform quickly anyway.
Just to try to avoiding a bunch of critters. Yes.
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I promise, I don’t bite.
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i’d play with it in something non-vital first, like a tomato start from the store, keep both away from your important stuff for now. maybe try a few different mini-test-batches on a few cheap plants? definitely sounds intriguing, kinda wonder about salt/sodium content though. fwiw, oyster-shell is pretty damned cheap.
the thing i’m thinking of is: microbes have evolved there to break it down optimally in the way mammothP microbes, etc. are selected for ther phosph. chomping action. in which case, probably very good thing.
keep us posted.
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Ya I agree try a tomato seed test run in the uncooked soil first and see what it does for ya! You might have something much better than ya can get out of a bag!
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awesome, thanks man. this is exactly why I put this thread up, the tomato test is something I was totally overlooking, and is real cost effective way to go about it. I love it. My mission today is to gather up some tomater seeds and get a test run going…like you said, And maybe a couple of different succulents as well…always learning!! Thank you & grow on!
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I like your thinking, the salt/ sodium content of said soil was also something I had been pondering… my thoughts on that is that the top couple of feet of topsoil would be be viable and less concentrated w/ sodium due to natural leaching/flushing of rain waters.
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