Rock dust could have too much stuff like lime or calcium or things that create alkaline soil conditions along with the chicken poop.
Epsom salts is not really going to help you. You should read the posts here on Epsom salts. Use the search on this forum and read about different types of soil treatments and consider the pro and cons of each one before doing anything.
Here is what I would do, but don't take my word for it research it.

I would use miracid which is miracle grow for acid lovers as a liquid but not too strong and Aluminium sulfate but not too much. Don't just pour it on. Less is always more, be careful, add a bit and see what that does then add more if you like what it is doing.

Starbucks coffee grounds in your composting program provide nitrogen and acid, if you can get pine needles to compost, that would be good. It seems like you are adding too much alkaline causing things and then to fix it you are adding even more alkaline things. I use acid things all the time because my soil is very alkaline. I have to keep using acid things just so the ph won't go over 7.

TT, you have some potentially good suggestions here but the important thing is to know what's being added, and what the actual conditions are.

First you said rock dust might have thrown the pH or Ca too high, but we don't know what kind of rock dust was added. Terriemac says the pH is 'fine' in the initial post. You go on to suggest Miracid - what problem is that supposed to address?

TMac, if you think the Epsom has thrown off the Mg/Ca ratio, that may be, but you'd need a good lab soil test to find that out.

Getting some N in there pronto seems like a good idea. I couldn't say whether the blossom drop is from lack of N or a disease though. Blossom End Rot is from Mg deficiency, but it affects fruit after it is set, not blossoms, AFAIK.

I assume miracid would help to increase the level of acid. Maybe there are other better ways to do this. I understand that mulched with pine needles or composting a lot of pine needles won't help. I think coffee grounds would help. Dr. Earth has many different types of products.I don't know what kind of rock dust and how much. Even too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.

When I started out I dumped too much product on plants and killed them so I learned to be very careful. Take cotton seed meal, it is supposed make things acid, but I read about people on other forums using it and and the plants died. They used too much. But, gardening is learning. I am sure things will work themselves out if one sticks with it.

There are several contradictions that I see in the original poster's comments.

If there was adequate water, the soil would not be like concrete (no matter what it is). Add water, dig around in it, figure out what the soil is like.

Compost should not test as high N if it is "finished".

If there is no water, then Nitrogen won't be available and blooms will drop off, stems will sag. If there is no nitrogen (because the pine chips used it all) then just add more N (fish emulsion will keep it simple). Add more N on a regular basis until things settle down.

You wrote that the pH is "fine", but is it right for what you are trying to grow? Why did you add magnesium (epsom salts), and when you say that you added "rock dust" do you mean garden lime? That is calcium (or calcium & magnesium) which will also eventually raise the pH of the soil if it is too acid. Did you buy acid topsoil? Nitrogen will not be available to plants if the soil is too acid, no matter how much N and water is there. Lime would not have worked this fast in good soil, especially with inadequate water unless you tilled it in well throughout the root zone of your plants. It moves downward slowly (except in well watered pure sand), which brings me to wonder about how far down you went for your soil sample to test the pH. Nitrogen starvation causes stunted growth, and toxic levels of minerals can do the same... but N is available to plants only when water exists, which is seems is not the case here.

I think that somewhere in all of this, you have some kind of a mis-understanding about the situation. You need to find out what it is that you mis-understand, or what you "think" is happening which isn't real.

There are many things that have been changed. First, check water. Then add a gentle form of non-burning Nitrogen (NOT chicken manure). Then carefully examine what is actually in front of you, and what you actually see in the soil and in the plants. Dig around, pull up plants and check the roots, etc. It is probably more simple than you think if you can forget all the ideas you have whirling around in your head. Plants try to survive, and they really don't need very much to succeed. You'll figure it out.

Good advice Piano.

The only comment I have is that compost will indeed test 'high' using a 'soil test kit', because levels of N in soil are generally much lower than that of compost. If a finished compost is 1-1-1 for example, it will be 1% N or 10,000 ppm. This is at least 10 times higher than soil would be. If it wasn't, there would be no fertilizer value to compost.

TT: I already knew what acid does to the pH, my point was that the OP said the pH was OK, so I did not see the value in manipulating it.

terriemac,

Your statement about switching to hay for coop bedding caught my attention. I won't answer how to help your garden here, but will give you suggestions for your chickens to avoid hurting them since I've been a 4-H poultry leader for 10+ years. Spot cleaning the coop is unnecessary.

If this post doesn't answer your questions email me through GW. Hay molds & molds kill chickens. Your pine shavings are perfect and if you want to try something else try the pelleted bedding sold for horses added to the pine shavings litter when you need more bedding. Chopped straw is fine, but quite slippery & not as absorbent as wood products. Also the straw mats instead of being fluffy and is difficult to shovel out.

Do not put any wood products outside in the chicken run either. If the run is muddy cover it, use pea gravel to increase drainage, or add a slope for run-off. Periodically rake and remove build up of manure if needed. They scratch through the pea gravel and keep it nice if you go that route.

Inside, switch to a deep litter system where you don't clean it out as often, but add more litter when you notice dampness or slight odor. The chickens mix it up & it composts in place, so there is no stink! Sprinkle grain once a week for them to scratch up the bedding or alternatively you go in there weekly to mix it up with a flat shovel.

Use dropping boards or screen off under the roost then those are the weekly or monthly removal chores to compost in a pile or as sheet mulch in the garden outside of the growing season.

If odor is a problem increase ventilation to reduce ammonia levels. All times of the year even in freezing weather they need ventilation vents, windows, etc. A tight coop doesn't allow the moisture in the manure and from birds' breathing to escape.

The deep litter system works well & you can clean out only 1-2x a year not counting the under the roost droppings removed regularly. You save money and time without having to remove and add bedding monthly during the rainy season. Once you get the deep litter system going you won't want to go back to the other way.

Ideally, we clean out the coop in the fall once the weather cools and frost comes. We spread that out a few inches deep on garden beds not in active growth and makes a nice mulch for fruit trees. Too thickly it can be smelly. Then as winter goes on we spread used coffee grounds and shredded leaves as we acquire them.

If needed we clean it out again once the air starts to warm up in late spring or summer and includes sweeping/vacuuming, spraying with pinesol, etc. Over our dry season of summer we need less bedding than in winter wetness. Some years we just remove 1/2 the bedding and go with that for the rest of the summer adding more as needed to keep it loose and do a full clean out in fall.

Hope that helps make it easier to manage~Corrine

Corrine brings up some good points about poultry management. The deep litter system works great. And I would certainly agree that adequate ventilation is essential. And by "adequate" I mean what many people might consider extreme - my coop has 2 large storm windows that remain open (though screened with wire) all year long. Even in the depths of winter. Chickens can survive cold just fine. They cannot survive bad air. You want a large volume of air being exchanged freely, all the time.

That said though, my experience with hay/straw has been very different. For me it is never a mold problem, particularly when used inside the coop. In fact it stays quite dry inside the coop, so mold never could be a problem (the dryness of a chicken coop is why the deep litter system works so well). My chickens love it and are very healthy. I would never switch back to pine shavings.

I wish I could easily respond to all the comments and questions but I don't have that much time :) Bottom line I will get an official soil test. I did apply blood meal over a week ago but I'm still losing plants.
I've been brewing a compost tea for a week which besides compost, includes rabbit droppings & urine from 3 rabbits with water added to almost fill a 25gal container. I used it to water some flowers - if they fair well I might continue throughout. Wondering if I can use the compost tea to water the garden on a regular basis...
Corrine, thank you for the info. Unfortunately I am unable to do a deep litter system. The tiny coop is raised off the ground, has a solid floor and 2 sides are open (hardware cloth) - so lots of ventilation.
Those of you who are confused by some of my statements and think I'm mistaken. Feel free to email me if you want me to clarify. I'm not an experienced gardener. I'm learning my lessons now by trial and error and sifting through the advice I read - which at times is confusing when mixed with opinions. Some of you have been very encouraging and some quite challenging but I appreciate it all. Gardening ain't for sissies.

I finally got the soil test results back. I'm wondering if the rock dust I put in the soil is the culprit of my dying garden.
Ph: 6.7
Organic matter: 1.8
Nitrogen: 78
Phosphorus: 178
Potassium: 971
Magnesium: 700
Calcium: 3317
Sodium: 49
Sulfur: 12
Zinc: 19.7
Manganese: 3
Iron: 26
Copper: 1.5
Boron: 1.3
Percent cation saturation:
Potassium: 9.5
Magnesium: 22.0
Calcium: 63.2
Sodium: 0.08

I think the problem is too much fert and if you make compost tea that will just make it worse, you should try adding no more compost or ferts of any type.

I love your attitude and spirit.

Did the soil test come with recommendations? I'm no expert, but I don't see anything that looks alarming on that list of elements. Seems like the OM is a little low, but that won't make plants die.

I was not considering the soil test, but the ph does look high to me. I was just considering the last post you posted before the soil test. You could be killing your garden with kindness.

Ok, so I googled soil test results and found a document.

Looks like your P, K, and Mg are all on the high side. The K and Mg are really whack. The Mg might be the culprit.

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to soil test explanation

Could be. I recently did a test and found P = 208 (higher than yours) and K at 700+ which was considered excessively high. Yours is 971.

There is very little available about what to do when something is too high, or what the effects are. It's obvious what to do when something is low.

Idaho: I notice that reference is from Rutgers and it talks about the Mehlich-3 test method being appropriate for the mid-Atlantic region. The OP is in CA so I'm just wondering if that makes a difference. The optimum ranges for P, K, Ca and Mg are not giving the same 'high' and 'excessive' ranges that my test report here in MO listed. I don't know what our lab uses for a method.

Upon further review...

Although the Mg levels are a bit high, they might not be the cause of the problems that terrimac is experiencing. Short answer, I don't see problems with the soil test results.

tox, if terrimac is in CA, her soil pH is surprising. CA soils usually test about 7.8 pH. Hers was 6.7 (and I'm jealous). I think that because of the pH of the soil, the Mehlich would be reasonable. If the pH were higher, the lab doing the test might have displayed results from 'Olsen' test.

Speaking of pH, how did it get so low with so much Calcium and Magnesium in the soil? Maybe that's the clue. What brought down the pH in the presence of so much alkaline material? The percent of OM doesn't reveal the presence of a lot of compost. If it had, I might have suggested that immature compost could be the culprit. But OM of less than 2% is on the low side.

I did look around for optimal soil test results in CA, but I could not find any thing.

You could still stay with pine shavings as bedding and get a lot LESS of them in your daily "spot clean-up" if you could install a shelf a few inches beneath the hens' roosts. I use empty feed bags to line the shelf. I either pick up the bags by the corners and dump the manure out when it accumulates, or use a garden trowel to scrape the poop off the edge of the shelf into a bucket to be carried out. This collects a lot of manure WITHOUT the pine shavings, and then the manure can be mixed with something better for composting purposes, like leaves, straw, shredded cardboard, etc. Straw and hay do make wonderful compost, but they are hollow and can be a haven for mites which will make your chickens VERY unhappy.

Terriemac, see Idaho's post above. Have you added anything except compost and rock dust? What kind of rock dust was that?

I usually add Dr. Earth's organic fertilizer 5-7-3 when I plant and some Epsom salt (except this season).

When my over the counter soil tester didn't register nitrogen I added some blood meal and bat guano.

For the last two years I've been adding a lot of glacier rock dust when I plant (except for this season). It's been slowly going downhill every since. Coincidence?

The lab that did the soil testing recommends adding more organic matter - which I assume would be my compost but then I'd be adding more nitrogen which is already too high. They also recommend adding gypsum.

Any analysis on the rock dust bag? Glacier rock could be anything. I don't know much about rock dusts or their effects on soil, but this seems to bear looking into.

Epsom salt would of course boost up the Mg but it does not seem to be excessively high (as already stated by Idaho G).

I wonder what the basis is for recommending gypsum. Perhaps the Ca:Mg ratio needs to be higher?

I use GAIA GREEN Glacial Rock Dust, 100% Canadian Glacial Moraine.
calcium: 1.4
mag: 0.562
cobalt: 0.00234
iron: 3.95
Manganese: 0.0928
sodium: 1.25
The soil lab (generically) recommends diamond k gypsum to leach out: potassium, magnesium, and sulfur

I saw that brand of rock dust on amazon. I just think you have added too many different things, but I no idea how you got so much calcium if you did not add a lot of pure calcium carbonate. If 1500 is normal how did you get 3317? It sound either impossible or the soil test is wrong or something.

Tropial thoughts....I don't understand any of it :)In fact I'm going to call the lab because according to the graph they provided 3317 is low-medium, but in the analysis report that number is very high. And the confusion continues....aaargh!!!

I had blossom end rot last year and the nursery told me is was caused by lack of calcium. I bought a foliage spray to set the fruit - but nothing went in the soil.

I never trust what they tell you in nurseries. I don't think calcium lack causes rots. Rots are usually fungal but could be bacterial in nature. I had something like that, the camellia buds turned brown and fell off, and some anti fungal spray fixed that. If you compost a lot you increase the amount of fungal type things. Plants in a barren soil don't get fungal as much.

Good grief, tropical! You need to look up Blossom End Rot and its causes.

Here is a link that might be useful: Blossom End Rot

Good Grief Charlie Brown!!!

I did look at that, but that is not rot of the blossoms. It is rot of the fruits which are already set. A blossom is not the same as a fruit and it also said:
Foliar applications of calcium, which are often advocated, are of little value because of poor absorption and movement to fruit where it is needed.

Blossom end rot is rot on the end of the fruit where the blossom was, not blossom rot.

Now back to terriemac: it is odd that they would say Ca is low-med in one place and high in another. 3000 is not that high. That's about what my (essentially unamended) clay is, but then again it's derived from limestone. My garden, based on the same clay but with 15-20 yrs. of compost additions and no lime, is about 5000, which they did admit was high.

That said I don't think the totals are the only important factor, but certain ratios (Ca:Mg) are, along with pH and other factors. The whole big picture is important. I wish I knew more about this stuff, but Idaho's post above stating that nothing is too out of whack seems reasonable to me.

Your rock dust numbers only add up to 7.5%, so I wonder what the rest of it is, particularly how it affects pH (is it acidic or basic rock) and what the major minerals are. Silicon and oxygen are going to make up a lot of the rock matrix, but there may be Al, K, and many other minerals. I haven't used rock dust so I'm not very familiar with it.

But could the calcium spray make so much calcium in the soil?

Can you find a chart that says 3000 is not high? The only chart says 3000 is high. If 5000 is not even high, what is the point in calculating calcium, if it doesn't even matter. If one one can agree on what is high or low? There has to be some baseline numbers for making any judgement as to high or low.

terriemac,

If you are still reading this discussion. Your experience is somewhat similar to my own garden which is in heavy California clay.
1st year, dug raised beds, mixed in leaves, pine needles, compost. Garden did ok, not great but Ok.
2nd year, didnt redig. Garden did poorly.
3rd year, didn't redig, but had cover crops over winter. Garden was terrible.
4th year, made hugelkultur beds, did not add compost. Garden is doing wonderfully, best one I've ever had.

My guess is it is probably just watering problems and heavy soil. With my drip system, under a dripper the soil will be mucky, yet 4 inches away it can be dry concrete. Plants don't like that to much. When I've dug around my wilting tomato plants (which are not in a hugelkultur bed), a few inches away the ground is dry and all the tomato roots are dry and dead, but close to the tomato stem the roots are sitting in muck.

Hand watering probably will be necessary. You'll need to stick your hand in the ground before & after watering to get a good feel for how much and where to water.

Also a good mulch will help conserve moisture and balance out its distribution a little. I did have pine needles as mulch, but it wicks water up to easily and the top becomes dry. So I am putting a couple inches of wood chips on top, they hold in moisture much better.

Good luck. And yes gardening is a skill that unfortunately can only really be learned through the experience of making mistakes.

Well are you getting an improvement with water flushing? How does it look now better or worse?

Ok. terrimac, stop adding Epsom salts. I think you have enough of that in the soil for the rest of its lifetime. And no more rock dust. You are low on OM, so search for a trusted source of compost or you could just load it up with peat moss. Yeah, get peat moss. It's cheap and you can't really hurt the soil with a bunch of peat moss.

If you have a source of 'virgin' topsoil, you might try diluting your current garden soil with some topsoil that has not been (*ahem*) amended. The intent is to 'dilute' the surprisingly high concentrations of _everything_ that is in your current garden soil.

Basically, no more rock dust, no more epsom salts, no more fertilizer. Lots of peat moss and even just plain soil. Keep it covered with a mulch. Peat moss can be used as a mulch. The mulch will help the soil stay moist. The peat moss will act as a mediator for vital minerals, although I highly doubt that your plants suffer from a lack of minerals.

Good luck to you.

Good ideas from Idaho. I think the peat moss can bring the ph down a bit, which will improve problems like mineral toxicity. There was a thread of that subject I was reading last night. If you bought say compost it could have bat guano or other types of poop, along with the chicken poop, which I think is a very bad idea to add any more of that unless it was well composted about two years. But peat moss will be nice safe and neutral. I know people people like peat but it can be renewal, I read a lot on that. Al posted something there is so much peat in Canada, can't remember where the thread is right now.

Here is a link that might be useful: peat moss used to change ph

Once I put down wood chip mulch on my garden bed and hose watered the entire bed, it improved greatly.

One tomato plant before this was wilting and leaves starting to yellow. The clay soil next to the plant base was mud. 4" away it was totally dry. I had applied liquid organic fertilizer.

1 week after hose watering and the wood chip mulch, the plant doesn't wilt in the afternoon anymore and the leaves have all greened up (even though I did not add any more fertilizer).

I believe with the more constant moisture levels (about 1.5' radius from the plant base), the organic fertilizer was able to start breaking down and feeding the plant.

My plan now is to keep using the drip system, but maybe once a week go out with a hose to water where the drip system doesn't reach in the beds (basically 4" away from a drip emitter).

I have the same issue with drippers in clay soil. We're into a month-long drought here in mid-MO. I go out with the watering wand and soak the entire bed in between drip irrigation.

The garden is starting to look a little happier since I quit relying on the automatic drip system and started supplementing with compost tea. Today I bought a huge bag of peat moss and will eventually work it into the soil. Thanks for the tip Idaho gardener :)I mulched one bed with some unfinished compost and will finish mulching the other beds with straw. Someone this week who saw my garden said I should just rip it all out and start over, but I'm not ready to do that yet. I have renewed hope!
I sure appreciate the support and encouragement from all you folks.

Yea! good for you! I'm glad to hear it's perking up.

If it's just crops there is no harm in turning them under and replanting. It not like you are losing trees that cost a lot of money.

I thought that compost tea would be more ferts, but maybe the bacteria in the compost tea can eat the excess ferts? I never made compost tea, but you need an air stone like a big fish pump to keep it from going anaerobic. I am glad it seems to be working for you.

I'm having 2nd thoughts about adding peat moss to the soil. I'd forgotten that I dealt with it before. Once it dried out it just repelled water. I recently watched a youtube video about compressed coir dust as great soil amendment and ordered some off the web. Fortunately I didn't have to pay for shipping but it's still costly. I wonder if the pm and coir would work together?

We had a big discussion on coir. I have been using in on my frog tank, so when I am finished I compost it. Peat Moss will work fine, but it is better to dig it a bit if you think it is making problems due to water repelling. I had a weed called hairy bitter crest and the more compost I added the more the hairy bitter crest was taking over, but peat moss calmed it down. That was a weed that liked compost. I found adding one bag of peat moss 2 cubic feet created an improvement, but I mostly add home made compost, so it would be a small amount of peat moss compared to the massive amounts of compost I add. I don't think there is any benefit to mixing coir and peat moss, but it would not bad per sec to do it.

This article may have the answer. Here's a quote. "This research lead International Ag Labs to promulgate two new quality indicators based off our soil tests: the calcium-potassium ratio and the calcium-phosphorous ratio. Both should be around 18:1. I have found that if the calcium to potassium ratio is narrow, say at 3:1 or less it is a sure indicator that the garden will not be producing high brix foods until the ratio is widened."
Putting Compost In Its Place

This post was edited by magnetico on Sat, Jul 19, 14 at 12:49

That is a very negative article posted above and I don't think it's at all accurate. It depends on what the compost you are buying is made of. It is like saying all cup cakes are unhealthy, if some are made with palm oil vs. a healthy fat, it is all different. Plus that soil may not want compost, and the OP, had a problem due to adding too much rock dust, as I recall. This was a long time ago. If you buy compost made of bad things naturally it will be bad, if you make it of healthy things it will be good. No one is suggesting you make tons of compost and use it, that would be like eating too many of the healthy cup cakes. There has to be a balance. Some people want to plant in straight compost, this is not a good thing, you should mix with native soil.

My garden is now thriving and so am I. The remedy was to move to the country :)

Ha! I reread a lot of this thread, and I wondered if your 'new topsoil' that turned to concrete was the problem all along. In any case your situation was familiar because I struggled with vegetable garden problems for several years before finally solving the problem. Turned out I had too much shade and tree roots in the garden. I had been adding compost for years and getting no results. Soon as I moved the beds into the sun away from tree roots, this year has been what I can only call a bonanza. There was pent up fertility in the soil just waiting to burst forth. It's all a moot point for you now I guess, but the experience is good for the next time problems crop up.

Happy gardening.

Roots from other plant can really create more of a problem, then people think. Plant roots don't like other roots near them.

Especially when it's a cottonwood root as big as your arm, a foot below the surface. :-\

The article I posted isn't a negative article and it doesn't suggest that compost is bad at all, only that too much compost is bad. I've read numerous sources that advise people to add compost and all will be well in their garden, and that simply isn't true.

Yes, it's true that the content of the compost determines its nutrient levels, but many people don't take that into account. If certain minerals were not in the materials used for composting, then they won't be in the compost either. Those who rely too much on typical compost often have calcium deficiencies after several years, among other deficiencies. That can be prevented to a great degree if some high calcium lime and gypsum are added to the pile, and some rock dust, kelp and/or sea minerals are added as well.

This post was edited by magnetico on Sun, Aug 17, 14 at 10:59

I've never experience that but my soils are limestone based clays so there is an abundance of calcium. So much so that after my last soil test 2 years ago, I stopped adding eggshells to the compost. Which just goes to show that if you're concerned about these issues, it's worthwhile to have your soil tested and find out what's going on first. Otherwise you're shooting in the dark. I would cetainly not spend money on mineral amendments to add to the compost or the garden unless I knew I needed what was in them.