And the results report...

Wow, how interesting, what does all this mean? All these codes. A & L Western Agricultural Laboratories just mailed me the results for the soil analysis I requested from King Conservation District (oh, that's who they contract with). That was definitely faster than 3 weeks, awesome. I had sent in 4 samples, 3 from the North Beach space and 1 from the community garden. The community garden sample (BCCCG) was conducted by the kids one day, and I'm stoked to report to them tomorrow what their effort was worth (a piece of paper with a bunch of codes!). No applications of lime because that will just add more calcium.

1. NBGVG (North Beach vegetables) soil has an even keel pH, and very little Magnesium, Sodium or Sulfur (all the samples are low on the latter two - I wonder if it's better that way) yet is (almost overly) abundant in Calcium. An application of Nitrogen is recommended, but not in excess. -> I need to get busy with the nitrogen fixers.

2. NBGNH (soil from the mole hills!)  has a bit more Magnesium than the vegetable beds and a bit less calcium. The pH is more acidic within a buffer between 6.4-6.8. This is what can be found under the lawn, or dandelion/horsetail/red clover meadow, if you will. I was just curious, so I sent a sample in from the mole hills.

3. BCCCG (community garden) doesn't really need applications of anything. I will just emphasize to the kids that the soil is slightly acidic (6.6-6.8) and we can consider what impact that will have on food crops. It would be also worthwhile to run the pH tester from Swansons on the garden's water source.  Just to compare. A fun little science experiment. Also I just read that hydrangeas can be a fallback pH tester method. pH above 6.8 produces pink flowers and below 6.6 produces blue. You mean we don't need labs to figure this stuff out?

4. NBGRB (the roses) are living in slightly acidic soil (6.4-6.8). Which makes sense because roses prefer slightly acidic soil (this article says 6.5) and these particular roses have been established awhile. "Awhile". I also heard at that workshop at Swansons about intercropping roses with other herbacious acid lovers. This web stream recommends planting red clover or lupines. I can definitely get access to that.

Nitrogen-fixers. So that's why the "meadow" is producing red clover.