Re: [tomato] San Antonio soils.
John and Jan Taylor (Tomato@GlobalGarden.com)
Wed, 10 Mar 1999 12:52:55 -0600
Yes, we have sand....lots of it....I guess it is because we are just a few
miles south of San Antonio..towards Poteet (The Strawberry Capitol for the
other people on this list...and they grow some great ones!)....So I am not
on the Balcones Escarpment...
Hence our soil is more 'sand' than 'sand/limestone/rocks'....And was quite
surprised when we found this house 3 years ago that I would not have to
spend years amending the soil.....The soil north of San Antonio looks like a
gardeners nightmare...In fact when we first arrived at this place, they were
just finishing the San Antonio Metro water lines along the road...homeowners
had to hook up their own lines to the meters...we helped dig many lines, (a
ditch witch over acre's and acre's for neighbors) and went pretty deep with
the ditch witch...(a foot or better)...never hit limestone...
Would like you to look Catherine on your soil maps you have and let me know
what you see...Hwy 16 @ 1604 South. Could it be that this once was part of
the Medina River (about 3 1/2 miles away)?
The downside to it is that it tends to blows away unless you amend it with
'barn scraping' or 'yard clippings' or something that will compost in...I
did mix in a lot of 'barn scrapings' the first year, and now just turn in
what I want (or get around too).....but have not had to clear rocks.....and
this is different than the normal what you would see if you go further north
in Bexar County...
I may go to the drip irrigation system everyone talked about..I remember now
that has been mention about using a drip irrigation for gardens here in the
San Antonio area....will prob hit the garden centers this weekend.....
Keep up the good discussions!
Jan Taylor
San Antonio, Texas