Shoutout to the retired mailman in Tucson who told me my soil was dead

I have been growing tomatoes in the same two raised beds for 6 years and last summer the plants just stopped. A retired mailman named Hank saw me poking at a sad Roma and said, "Your dirt is tired, not your plants." He told me to send a sample to the county extension office for $15. The report came back at 6.1 pH and barely any organic matter, which shocked me since I had been dumping bags of potting mix on top every spring. I had been feeding the plants and ignoring the soil the whole time. Now I mix in compost and leaves every fall instead of just topping off. Anyone else get humbled by a soil test after years of guessing?

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eva_ward881d ago

What made you finally decide to send in that soil sample instead of just buying another bag of compost? I ask because I did the same thing for years in my own garden, just piling on new stuff every spring and wondering why the plants got worse. That mailman basically told you the plants were fine, it was the dirt underneath that had nothing left to give. Did the extension office report tell you what to add, or just hand you the numbers and leave you guessing?

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