OT creek silt for veggie garden

Anonymous-0 · Feb 18, 2009

I have a few questions to the later aged farmers, is creek silt good for a veggie garden, I live next to a lake with a creek outlet where I can get a few 5 gal. bucket loads of silt for the garden. I know that before I moved here, there was a team of horses that was lost on the lake removing silt for farmers fields,don't know if it was for grass fields or not.

GeneMO · Feb 18, 2009

I am a stream team volunteer here in MO. I do some water quality monitoring on my creek. I would be a little leery of your plan. Now you could mix in a little at a time, maybe 10% or so.

You would want to really pay attention to what is upstream and what is happening at the time of the year the silt came down.

You might get too high levels of Nitrogen or whatever herbicide was used above.

You could probably send off a sample but that may be more aggravation than it is worth.

Good luck,, Gene

Janicholson · Feb 18, 2009

Silt is usually a single small particle size of silica, clay, or other mineral from rock decomposition. It can be of benefit in sand to make it heavier, it is not good to put in most clay as it is usually not much different. It is usually low (depleted) in organics, and as such has only trace mineral nutrients, no Carbon, no Nitrogen, no Potassium, no Phosphorous. Silt can also saturate with water and make mud into simi quicksand. A soil scientist should be consulted before making assumptions about what I have said, Every soil on earth is special. JimN

John (C-IL) · Feb 18, 2009

The other guys gave some good answers. The other thing to consider is that the silt hasn't got any soil structure which will take a few years to develop.

If you are looking for some rich soil to use an old gardeners trick is to go get the nice dirt from the mole hills along the road ditches. That soil is high in organic matter and nutrients, already has soil structure and will make an excellent top dress for your garden.

Anonymous-0 · Feb 19, 2009

Thanks for the reply, the type of soil I live on is all sugar sand, any fertilizer as 10-10-10 I puton just dissapates from the ground. I was hoping that the silt would kind of help mix in as a binder and hold some fertilizer. I tried fish remains,but the local racoons love to get to them,and a Electric fence is possible,as long as the neighborhood dogs don't get caught in it.I even tried some black dirt from a local potato farmer,but now all it want's to grow is pig weed.

OT creek silt for veggie garden

Anonymous-0

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GeneMO

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Janicholson

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John (C-IL)

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Anonymous-0

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