Soil and Diseases

Let’s continue with our talk about the soil:

With the temperatures rising everywhere we are faced with what to do about it at the home owners level. You or your gardener will naturally start watering more, and more, often to keep your plants, trees, roses, etc. from dying in the heat. The soil will dry up, and your property will suffer if you don’t water enough. That is true but watering too much is also a major problem and not because of the misuse of water during a drought; but because watering every day is not good for the soil. It increases the amount of water in the air and thus allows the diseases to spread from the ground into the air and on top of plants already weaken from over watering.

Watering every day does the following:

Makes all plants and trees lazy and they will have shallow roots because that’s where the water is and the deep roots eventually die off and then the plant follows. Tree’s have deep roots that go down well deep enough to find water. They are excellent at locating underground water sources.  Ventura has zero underground sources left, and Malibu is not far behind, depending on where you live in Malibu with the northern end having more underground water than the middle and southern ends of Malibu do. Watering every day increases the presence of the “bad” guys and decreases the presence of the “good” guys, To put it simply.

All diseases  (of plants, not humans as one reader pointed out to me that I should clarify it, so folks do not get confused. I figure this is a gardening column and not a doctors column so you folks should have figured it out already, but I promised this person I would mention it), all diseases are soil born. They migrate to plants via various mechanisms from insects, animals, wind, water, and humans.  By the way, humans do a good job of spreading diseases including human diseases.

But sticking to plant diseases; over watering destroys the soil by water soaking it and the natural bacteria, microbes die off leaving the soil barren and wide open to attack or invasion by bacteria that harbor certain diseases.

The disease bacteria start on the ground, and the water vapor carries them into the air and spreads onto a weakened plant. If it falls on a healthy plant, that plant will have enough of the good guys on the leaves to stop it in its tracks. But if the plant is already weak then that means that the soil is also in a bad health and that translates to less and maybe none of the essential armies of guys to fight off the bad guys. The plants will also become deficient in trace minerals, which will lower its Brix levels and thus because attractive to pests (which also will bring their diseases with them to attack the tree or plant).

So the key here to keeping your plants, trees, roses, lawn everything healthy is, of course, having live healthy soil.

So your main goal should be keeping your soil happy.

First off, realize that watering too much is just as bad as not watering enough.

Also, understand that trees do need water, but in the right places and the right amount.

The soil is important and needs protection from the heat and drought and human pollution.

We humans are so out of touch with nature that we are constantly polluting Mother Nature and everything around it. Please read my article called “How to Kill all Living Beings within the next 50 years” for details. We actually will do this in even fewer years probably under 20, and I am not kidding. But that is another story, one too long for here.

We can only live in the now and now is the time to pay attention to your immediate earth that surrounds you.

Reduce water. Control the water by placing underground drip lines then compost and mulch over it. By keeping the water below ground, you will retain the 75% that’s lost when done above ground.

Best to water longer less often. Lawns, which have been properly “Trained- ( yes you must train the lawn and the gardener for proper soil and water care of lawns), can be watered once, or at most twice per week during hot periods and weekly the rest of year. The lawn should have a drip line installed about 12 inches deep. Tree’s will love a good deep watering once or twice a month. Using two gals per hour heads a tree should get 4 to 8 drip heads depending on the age of the tree, laid out in a circle around the tree, starting at 4 feet out from trunk with the second line 1/2 way between trunk and drip line of the tree (where the farthest branches stick out). Ideally, the drip line should also be placed about 4 feet out from the drip line (this encourages more root development. The new type of drip lines have built in drip emitters and will last a long time in the ground but will eventually need replacing as they can get clogged up by roots etc.

The soil on the property should have an application of rock dust, a good organic fertilizer, compost, and then be mulched over with azalea/gardenia mix- to help keep the soil slightly acid. After the first time, it is done, you will only need to add in areas as needed. Avoid adding too much around the base of the tree. Mulch etc. should not come into contact with the tree trunk as it will damage the trunk and cause problems.

Learn to use your timer. It can be programmed to use a certain percentage of the water, so you can quickly reduce the watering by 10%, say, without causing problems. Keep an eye out for problems and deal with it before it gets out of hand.

More on soil next week!

Any questions send me an email at andylopez@invisiblegardener.com

Love

andy Lopez

Invisible Gardener