So I really messed up, finished up my garden prep today and as I was putting everything up I realized that I had grabbed the wrong fertilizer bag I intended to put out 5-10-5, but actually had used 17-17-17. Didn’t realize it until after I had already tilled it into the dirt. So now I’ve basically got ten 50’ long x 2’ wide rows with 4x too much fertilizer tilled into the soil down to 12” deep or so. Does anybody know any way to fix it? Digging out all the soil isn’t really an option since that’s almost 40 cubic yds and I don’t have an excavator, backhoe or dump truck. I do have drip tape in each row and a timer. Do you think I can just water the everloving **** out of it for the next few days and wash some of it out? I’ve got heavy red clay soil so it doesn’t drain for ****, but all the soil with the fertilizer in it is freshly tilled and well broken up. And about 10’ from the end of the rows there is a pretty good drop off in elevation so I could dig a 10’ long trench off the end of each row to allow the excess water to run off. Any other ideas or am I just throuroughly f***ed?
Water it, daughters garden is over the old pig yard, soil tests are off the charts but everything grows well.
Water is your friend. Why do we fertilize at all? Because without adding nutrients to the soil, it will degrade. I would water it heavily, let it sit for a few days and water it again. And then do it again. When I say water, I mean saturate, even flood it. Some plants may get burned from the heavy fertilizer and others may do amazingly well. Good luck.
The above and get a soil test at one of your local ag testers, ask a farmer. Now if it still looks bad don't take away just ad a top dressing of low fertilized pottying mix/peat moss to plant in, several inches. Things like tomatoes can be planted vertically near surface. (Trench) It will give your plants roots a buffer to grow a root system gradually getting to the rich stuff. Potatoes, ya thats a whole different situation especially sweets.
Frankly, unless you're planting something very tender, I doubt it will matter...especially if you tilled the fertilizer in a foot...
What's that, like chicken crap? Possums isn't top dressed, it's tilled in. I use 10-10-10 often with similar clay soil...even though amend it with all kinds of organic matter.
Chicken craps great if it's been composting a good while. The stuff I just put in raised bed as a base was loaded with earth worms. Fresh out of barn if mixed with hay, not straw, hay, that can be so hot that it is actually smoking. Not steaming but smoking. I will only use straw or shavings, hay in deep bedding can be dangerous, especially when it gets turned and oxygenated.
Thanks to all for the input and calming me down y’all! So far so good. 198 out of 200 asparagus crowns have sprouted so far, peppers are starting to appear, and broccoli (started indoor) seems to be unaffected. Still waiting on okra, green beans, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, butter beans, black eye peas, pink eye purple hole peas, and whore’s radish to appear, but I planted most of that Sunday so its probably got a few days before it makes an appearance. I really thought I had ruined my garden and was soo pissed at myself so thanks to all of y’all for making relax a bit and just go with it.
