Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 25, 1990 TAG: 9005250052
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
They sniffed, sifted and sprinkled water. It looked grim.
I'd sought their expert advice on a problem the surfaced a couple of weeks ago, as I toiled in the soil to ready a vegetable garden.
Offspring at my side, I prepared the moist earth for planting. Tenderly we placed seeds in a furrow, blew each one a kiss, and patted them with soil blankets.
Each day we would anxiously search for signs of vegetable life. Nothing. Not so much as a sprout. The sun baked the garden hard as an airport tarmac, and about as fertile, and my daughters sobbed long hours at night.
This was no garden. It was a pick-your-own brickyard.
Soil like this I never saw up in Yankeeland. This red Virginia clay-muck was tough and unforgiving, with all the tilth and charm of Quikrete.
I sought the the experts, toting a child's plastic bucket full of rock-hard soil to an obscure office across the highway from Lord Botetourt High School.
Jeannine Freyman cleared her throat and spoke first. This was not easy for her.
"You've got an inclusion of ruptic-ultic dystrochrepts. It's loamy skeletal," she said.
Alvin Guthrie added sadly: "It's Chiswell Litz."
I broke down. It was too much for one day. Dozens of smothered green bean seeds were buried in my backyard. Loamy skeletons. And now Chiswell Litz. Of all the 80 or so soil types in Roanoke and the surrounding county, my garden had to be of the dreaded Chiswell Litz. Silty loam.
Freyman, a soil scientist, recently finished compiling the first-ever soil map of Roanoke. Guthrie is a conservationist. They work for the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, and they know their loams from their shales.
Somberly they worked, quickly as emergency-room doctors.
Did you till the soil when it was wet?
Yes.
Bill Garrett, a soil technician, let out a long, disappointed sigh.
Makes dirt clods so hard "you could hit a bull with it," he said.
Any earthworms in this soil?
No.
Soil technician Tony Rhoten suggested worm ranching.
I've tried that, but the worms are very tough to rope at roundup time, and they squirm too much for a branding iron.
As if I haven't had enough bad news, they tell me there is clay beneath my Chiswell Litz. Clay flocculates, they tell me. It has tiny particles to block water and it packs hard as pig iron.
Oldsmobiles have more organic content than my garden. Better cucumber yields have come from plants growing in the passing lane of Interstate 81.
The best crop for my veggie garden? Northern Red Oak, they said. Great in salads.
Lots of Miracle-Gro, they suggested. Mulch 'til it hurts. Boost the organic content. Rebuild the soil structure. Till in the fall, not in the spring. Apply peat moss liberally - measure in tons, not in pints. Be patient.
And Ed, said the soil people as I opened the door to leave, this year your best bet for fresh veggies may be the farmers' market.
Woe is me. I miss Pennsylvania.
by CNB