10 Yards New Garden Soil. Toxic? / Amend Recommendations

Hello everyone, nice to be at this forum. Many great gardeners here!

I have just received 10 yards of soil for $175.00 delivered! Isn't Craigslist such a great place to find good deals?

The 10 yards easily covered half my two car driveway - delivered by a dump truck no less.

At first look soil was a dark black color. A recent rain in south Texas area so soil was still a little clumpy and very heavy, very black in color. No worries I though.

The gentleman who sold me the soil explained soil came from Floresville Texas. This was good "farm top soil" and had been used on farms. Also, this soil is the same other nurseries use around town and has little or no rocks in it.

He was right about the rock content, it has little or no rocks, maybe shovel or two worth of small white rocks out of 99 wheel barrows it took to move 10 yards.

After moving the 99 wheel barrows into my garden the Texas heat has quickly dried out the soil. It has become rock hard and lost a little dark color. Appears very anaerobic and devoid of organic matter. I have since put about 40 bags of Texas Oak leaves on top and tilled into soil to try to introduce organic matter.

However with no water ( Texas has been very dry ) and a short amount of time, I now have little clumps of soil with leaves. Not the enriched, fluffy, soft and wonderful garden soil I had hoped for. Not possible for planting because the soil is still rock hard mixed with leaves. I don't think roots can penetrate the soil.

So here are my questions I need help with...

1. Should I test soil for toxicity / lead / contaminants? What would you do? Were do you get your soil tested? What are top 5 contaminants you would test for ( I know specific pesticides and toxins can be easily $50 each. )
This soil could be from anywhere in South Texas.

2. What type of soil do you think I have? If from Floresville Texas... Think they grow peanuts, Millet, Sorgum, Corn town there.

3. How would you amend this dense dark soil? Tree clippings?

4. Please see pictures of soil. These little termite things are very abundant. They are slightly yellow and 100th size of my fingernail? What are these guys? No worms in soil, its much too dense.


Here is a link to pictures on dropbox.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/08k2wyytkhxanru/AACUQtsdqqi-UpusAPmhJOzja?dl=0


Future steps for me: Instead of 10 yards of dense crappy soil. I plan to get 4-5 yards of proper garden soil from my local nursery. But even then ... they sometimes add "bio-solids" to soil to amend it. Who knows what that even means. Human feces? lol

Just a new gardener here needing help, Thanks again for your help.

Steve

 

Thanks for the tip on no sand. If you were to get soil tested at lab, do you have a fav place that has reasonable prices?

 

Good old Texas blackland ! Onions and cotton love it. Toni is right, just add as much compost as you can and till it in. The leaves will help too. It is actually pretty rich once you get it out of the concrete stage. As it is now it will keep your garden aerated if it is worked regularly and it isn`t really a bad thing. The clumps will disappear over time.

 

I wonder if your County offers the soil test kits? In Michigan, Wayne County used to offer the kit for testing our soil. The sample was then sent to the correct department, Agriculture I think.

Now I have a question about the leaves. Am I mistaken in thinking Oak leaves are not good for garden soil? Also, I'm supposing that you did chop the leaves before applying them to the soil. We usually run the mulching lawn mower over leaves before adding them to the garden.
It won't help this season, but when you put the garden away in the Fall, after putting mulched leaves, whatever you use, you might try covering all with cardboard or leaf bags, or even layers of newspaper. We flattened cardboard boxes and leaf bags, wet them after they're on the garden, then cover with straw or more leaves.

 

Oak leaves are fine for gardens. Those little white things look similar to ant larvae. Do not think they are a problem. I have ants that pop up in mine but do not bother anything,,except me maybe.

 

Thanks for all the help. The oak leaves were taken straight from the yard(s) including my neighbors. They were not mulched first.

I do not have a Calloway's nursery nearby, But I did find Ag dept that can perform routine soil testing for a fair price. http://soiltesting.tamu.edu/

Seems everyone thinks this is standard Texas black clay. This is helping me ease my worry about toxic soil : ) I still will have heavy metal test done.

 

Mart, thanks for setting the Oak leaf issue straight.
It seems I read somewhere that they shouldn't be used,
but I wasn't certain.

 

They may have been talking about live oak. While they are fine to use it is an evergreen here in the south and some think they are not good because of that. The live oak leaves are a bit heavier and do not break down as quickly as other oaks.

 

Mart, I checked further and this is one reply.

"Using oak leaves as a mulch did not cause poor growth there is another reason. Oak leaves do contain large quantities of Tannic Acid, a natural preservative, but in over 30 years of using mostly shredded oak leaves both as a mulch and in my compost I have not see any plant growth stunted."

It appears I should do research before posting. It may be the Tannic Acid I had read about.

 

Yes,, but that is natural and doesn`t hurt anything. The acorns of some oaks have quite a bit of tannic acid. Those huge burr oak acorns are used as food by some. They are the golf ball size acorns. I have a few of the acorns if I can figure where to plant them.

 

Mart, I hope you decide on a place to plant the Acorns. Oak trees are so lovely when full grown and the acorns are food for wild life.

 

Right now I am oaked out. I have three,,a red oak and two pin oaks, a hackberry, two crepe myrtle, a huge elm, several black locust, an old pear tree and a bradford, three cedars,, 7 apple,, two nectarines,,a plum,,three peach trees, three blueberry bushes,, a pecan,,a hawthorn, and a sweet gum. And thats just here in my yard,,hope I didn`t forget some.
There is no room for more trees. And if the wildlife can`t find something here to eat,,they are just not looking.