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In the green
Build your soil
By Melissa Bierman

November is a great time of year to amend your soil. The year's harvest is winding down and the cool weather makes gardening enjoyable. Many of the soil amendments you add will do wonders for next spring’s bulbs, perennials, and shrubs in your garden. Vegetables, herbs, and fruits all take nutrients from the soil as they grow. Each year you need to replace those nutrients to insure a healthy harvest. It all begins and ends with the soil, so we must feed it! The healthier the soil, the better your garden will grow and the fewer problems you'll have.

There are many ways to improve your soil, including adjusting the pH, adding fertilizer and soil amendments, and planting cover crops. By doing a little work now, you'll save time and energy in spring when you can be enjoying the spring buds and bulbs.

In order to know more about your soil, the first step is to test the soil to see if any nutrients are significantly out of order. You can take a soil sample and send or bring it to the Oregon State Extension Service office for testing. They will give you a complete write-up of the pH level and the levels of soil nutrients. For a simpler evaluation of your soil, try the do-it-yourself soil-testing kits available from a local nursery.

After you complete the soil test, you may need to adjust the soil pH—the measure of the soil's acidity/alkalinity. Most vegetables, azaleas, rhodies, and blueberries, grow best in soils that are slightly acid, falling between the 6.0 and 7.0 range on the pH scale. Add lime to raise the pH and sulfur to lower it to within these levels.

Lastly, if you only do only one thing this fall to your garden, please add organic matter. Organic matter breaks down in the soil into humus, which is essential for soil health. Add aged manure, soil conditioner, or compost to the garden this fall, working in a 1-2-inch-thick layer. The organic matter will feed the microorganisms in your soil, creating better soil structure, tilth, and water drainage on clay soil; and improving water retention on sandy soils.

Happy Gardening! Melissa Bierman, BS, HTR, LEC, has her own gardening consulting company, Goodness Grows LLC. Send her your gardening questions at goodnessgrows@gmail.com

CM News reader Susan Farkas wrote in with this information:

My azaleas and some of my rhododendrons started to have leaves that are white with black spots on the bottom. I consulted with our local Coop Extension (https://ask.extension.org/groups/1086) and they were very helpful. They identified the problem as the lace bug, which can be very harmful if not treated and can destroy these bushes.

I started looking for solutions and at this time I am talking to a few Tree and Plant care companies and certified arborists as I do not beleive that I can do effective spraying, and I do not know which products to pick, how much to buy, etc.

Since the lace bug infestation started here only about 4 years ago, there is little reliable exerience with treatments and their results. But the infestation can be devastating. I looked around and all azalea bushes in our neighborhood are infected. Most homeowners do not know what's the problem or that there is a problem. Unfortunately the treatment seems to be quite expensive, has to be repeated many times during one year and there is no guarantee for success...   

Proposals that I received to-date also seem to illustrate that commercial outfits do not know how/when to treat and naive end users might just pay for something that is clearly not useful....

Here is some helpful info I got from the master gardener at the Coop Extension: http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/40424/em9066.pdf

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