I have used that stuff while rooting sad clones before. I guarantee that it won’t hurt your plants at all. I don’t know if it will help. I am once again Mucho curious.
Gary…a most unsettling condition…
I too have that type of soil in my GARDEN!
I use a compost tumbler…I add aged compost material, some activated charcoal, and I flood it with
strawberry tops (loads up the zinc), pieces of copper (get them at local stores…just a small amount), plenty of bacterial agents. I do about 50/50 hydrophobic / heavy organic
When this cooks (30 days), I empty in 50L containers,add 4,4,4, Barely #2 seeds (I grind them to prevent sprouting…they add needed fungus and bacteria to the soil, minerals, molasses, mychondria’s and let that cook another 30 days
I then use this as topsoil / topping and add my worm casings (10-20%)…scratch that is…The N starts out high but simmers down in a few days / week…then it balances itself out as the bacteria takes over.
I do use TEA for watering…and have switched over to 20-10-20 soluble fertilizer (this is a synthetic so all potted plants MUST be flushed. I am about to harvest my first crop in this. Test results have had good results.
If this doesn’t work for you, think about a raised garden bed, add ALL the PHOBIC soil as the base layer, feed with straight phosphate, add a layer of good soil, add potassium, and finish with a top soil…let it rest a week. When you plant, the roots do not reach the P&K until they have built up the lower layers…
Yes I agree completely. This is probably the best long-term solution. Building a raised bed would at least get the whole garden separated from the water table as a starting point. It sounds like your water table is high there. Do you have problems with it seeping into your basement or crawl? And 21 inch pots/buckets you don’t have as much horizontal room for the water to dribble out. Since it’s all vertical drainage it probably helps the particles flocculating into clogs.
I’m still dying to get you to try some of that microbe lift. I think it will work for your problem.
we do NOT have basements or lower levels here in Las Vegas. The ground is Caliche, a clay like material that is as hard as granite. Too costly to dig DOWN…It would be great for temperature control…
I did the European ancient Hugelkutur method.
a decaying mound designed to collapse on itself over time. A mound that may in fact be spread out in the future after having built amazing soil for almost free
I cleared out a 16x20 plot, down to surface level, trimmed my trees, bushes, cardboard, and first laid down my phobic soil, then the trimmings with layers of compost and my aged compost (top soil -min 1year old compost) on top. Made rows…80% of my hydrophobic soil is at the base of these mounds that I turned into rows
I added rock phosphate, 3x phosphate and urea N at certain ;levels, 4.4.4 and the barley#2 seeds for bacteria, worm casings on top and worked that in the top 6 inches
Except for the HEAT…my garden picked up…only phobic left is in that first perpendicular row…
little by little I mix that in my compost tumbler and proceed as before
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ANSWER; YOU MUST REPLACE ALL SOIL ANNUALLY!!!
Here’s the long reply I posted elsewhere with the quotes from FoxFarm and Professor Varco
OK,OK I’VE GOTTEN THE ANSWSER FOR THIS YEAR’S FAILURE AND IT’S CAUSE SHOULD BE OF CONCERN TO ALL GROWERS! To sum it up, I lost 56 germinated seeds this season. Soil would dry out (hydrophilic), root balls sit atop this muddy base and slowly drown. Having exhausted all the usual places to research my problem. I contacted FoxFarm the maker of the “Ocean Forest” I and many use as our base. They graciously sent a call tag for a sample of my errant soil.
The amount of “drying agents” I used: perlite, vermiculite, sand, gravel and cactus/succulent soil had absolutely NO effect regardless of the amounts. ANY amount of the old (6 seasons) soil in the mix was enough to poison it.
So FoxFarm just got back to me; THEY CONFIRM MY SUSPICION THAT THE SOIL WAS TOO DENSE AND HYDROPHILIC. The raking I had done to “sanitize” the soil after the 1st round of failures exacerbated the problem, breaking soil and all the leftover hyphae into dust. The mycorrhizal supplementation leaves quite a bit of hyphae, when broken up form blockages in the soil.
Periodically fresh potting soil is really the best choice
From FoxFarm; “We do not recommend reusing FoxFarm soil, and we agree that the recharged soil should be disposed of…” !! MUST DISPOSE OF ALL SOIL ANNUALLY!!! SAY WHAT!!
I also have the advantage of a friend who is a Professor of Soil Sciences. His response:" THE ANSWER; your ‘potting mix’, ‘potting soil’, ‘rootzone media’ etc. is likely dominated with an organic fraction such as sphagnum peat moss (my preferred choice), or some kind of composted forested waste which I avoid as much as possible. With time the organic material in pots decomposes slowly leaving behind finer organic particles which are capable of greater water adsorption due to greater surface area. We use the term hydrophilic primarily to describe compounds that are attracted to water and do not repel it as hydrophobic compounds do. Hydrophobic compounds such as waxes, silicones, and such do not dissolve in water but actually repel it. Solarization can be used to sanitize but not completely sterilize soil, but it takes prescribed lengths of time and temperatures to be successful. Growing successive crops of the same species can, of course, result in a buildup of rhizoctonia, phytophora etc. root or seedling diseases, and along with poorer drainage, you are fighting a losing battle. Also, air/sun drying of organic potting soil is notorious for becoming hydrophobic and actually will repel water for a while until it reverts back to being able to adsorb (surface phenomena not absorption). Fungal hyphae are also hydrophobic resulting in water-repelling and thus the floating of the hyphae as you described. The clogging of pores is very real and most likely just the finely divided organic and inorganic particles filling the aeration/drainage pores which are critical for aeration of a soil. Bottom line as my wife started expressing to me many years ago that her houseplants ‘needed a soil change’. This is a typical progression of using potting media. natural soil has much less organic matter and through time develops a structure that balances macropore (aeration) to micropore (water adsorption) spaces. Although removing the potting soil and mixing and aerating and making an effort to enhance drainage and aeration characteristics by adding more sand, perlite, or vermiculite is seems like a noble cause the fact of the matter is you are working with a ‘muckier’ organic fraction. Organic materials as they decompose progress from a lighter fluffier material and browner in color to a blacker ore finely divided material which is denser with greater water holding capacity but yet it is muckier. You can look up naturally occurring histosols being from fibric, to hemic to sapric and for example, in Florida, they are referred to as ‘Muck’ soils."
THANK YOU PROFESSOR AND FOXFARM FOR YOUR TIME, STUDY AND RESPONSE. IT WILL COME AS A SHOCK TO MANY GROWERS TO HEAR THAT SOIL RE-CHARGING IS LESS EFFECTIVE THAN RE=TREADING RACE CAR TIRES!! THAT WE MUST BUY NEW SOIL EACH SEASON!!! WOW!! I GROW IN BIG BUCKETS, THAT WILL BE A LOT OF SOIL!!$$$
Sorry for the bad news, but I HAD to share it with you. GDub
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