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Hmmm just to add then for Kingston that outdoor grower should always check type of soil he's dealing with. They are all very different and have different qualities. I've just read that Jamaican land is very eroded due to coffee and coconut cultivation. If you then sit on a property that exploited the soil you'll have to enrich it. Usually it's about getting microlife at the top layer, and about getting micronutrients right.
Hey conradino, thanks for your your comments! Just to explain how my feeding and soil are set up. I have put a small layer of organic compost (from our fruit waste that has been sitting for a year) and a bag of horse manure. This is mixed in with 2ft of the original soil, which has been a spot for sugar cane to grow for 15 years or so. Which I recently replaced to prepare this spot. For the transplant I dug holes (maybe only 2 inches bigger then the plants size) and covered that lightly with the same mix that my plants were sitting in, which is Lambert High Porosity which is a Peat Moss based medium 60%, I mix this in with 20% organic compost 20% topsoil from a local garden store. So as you can see on the pictures there is only a small circle around the base of each plant where the prepared soil is. Would you recommend that I mix in all the soil with this same 60/20/20 mix? Or should I mix in with the current soil 50/50?
Ow another thing, when I dug up the soil for the first time there was quite some stones and tiles in there. I asked the owner and he said that they used to have a walk path through the garden before. I took al the big stones out and thought a few small rocks won't hurt the root system, might even give some benefits? Haha
As far as testing the soil, I do have a ph meter, an old one, but it still seems to work (over time it ranged between 5 and 7.5). This soil was at 6.8. So that's all I tested, how do I test the soil?
Advice is always welcome!
Smoke up!