CompuServe Thread

Greetings; As with all "budding" gardeners, experiences occur which 20/20 hindsight will tell you that you should have "checked that". This happened to me… I've had a bramble patch (Brazos Blackberry, Raspberry) for a couple of years now. It has been somewhat underwhelming in its success. I had thought they would be easy and carefree to grow. The growth had been slow, weak and spindly, with a great deal of deformity and leaf blight. I had tried everything, and no success. Now for the fun part… I figured a soil test wouldn't be of much value, because I routinely sample an area of the vegetable garden that is only 4 feet or so from the start of the bramble patch. The pH in that area was in the 6.5 range. By extension, the soil in the brambles OUGHT to have been just right. Finally yesterday I was ready to rip the things out and plant something else, or at least replace the plants thinking that I may have received a diseased batch. As a last straw, I pulled a soil sample and tested it. After all, if I was going to start over, I was "really going to do it right", and re-prepare the soil in the area. I had to re-run the pH test and even went and pulled ANOTHER sample. The pH in the brambles tested each time in the 9.5 to 10 range! Is it any wonder the poor things just couldn't get anything going? I haven't the foggiest idea what happened in that area before I bought the house, but the soil has definitely got some problems! Now for the "fun" part… I have spoken to a neighbor who has lived in their house for over 30 years, so if anyone would know what happened in that area, they would. (beside that, they are the embodiment of the idea of the "nosy neighbor"!!) It turns out, they remember the previous owner storing a "bunch" of 55 gallon drums in the area in question. Now I've sent a sample to be tested for chemical residuals. All of a sudden Love Canal syndrome is rampant in our household. I had to pull 8 samples from the entire area, and we wonder if we have been ingesting… well something. It's going to take 10 days to 2 weeks for the results. I'll post