When can I plant into amended soil?

[Rally1148]

Hey all,

So I'm planning on making a little garden for my ROD, ninebark, and oaks. I'll be using the in ground root trapper mesh bags. The soil right now is pretty poor (it was over an ancient septic tank), and is super sandy. We've got a garden roto-tiller, and I have loads of 1-3 year old oak leaves. The tiller does a great job shredding what we put in the soil, so I think the leaves will be chewed up pretty well. I'm figuring on making a 5x10 area, or maybe 10x10. The plan was to till in a bunch of the oak leaves, with a little bit of aged (1-3 years old) horse manure. I was also going to cast some blood meal as a source of N for the leaves, and a bit of pelletized lime.

My question is, if I till this in and water it well this Sunday, do you think that it would be safe to plant in it a week later?

 

[wiscwhip]

Oak leaves contain high levels of tannic acid(relatively speaking), and on sandy soil(which usually have a low ph anyways) this could lower your ph to unacceptable levels. Be mindful of this and maybe add some lime when you till it in. I don't think the timing will matter much unless you are talking waiting a year for the leaves to beak down and the tannins to leach out with the rains.

 

[Rally1148]

Oak leaves contain high levels of tannic acid(relatively speaking), and on sandy soil(which usually have a low ph anyways) this could lower your ph to unacceptable levels. Be mindful of this and maybe add some lime when you till it in. I don't think the timing will matter much unless you are talking waiting a year for the leaves to beak down and the tannins to leach out with the rains.

I didn't know if I'd burn them if I planted into them. I know to add some N to speed the breakdown of the leaves, but I didn't realize that the leaves dropped the pH that much. I've got some pelletized lawn lime that I used in my containers, I can throw some of that down.

 

[wiscwhip]

I don't know "how much" it would lower the ph, I just know that it will to some extent. Like I said, just be mindful and maybe add a small amount at first and maybe some small amounts at say monthly intervals. If you plan on keeping this area going for future use, regularly adding more organic matter and monitoring the ph and nutrient levels through soil samples would be a good idea. Sounds like a good plan overall.