Good Morning Jeffrey,

Thanks for reaching out; I can see how that must have been super surprising! (It also must have been surprising to find that your garden was the largest in Vermont! Thanks for making a note of the actual size.)

Let's start with several pieces of good news:
First, all of your micronutrient are in an optimal range for healthy plant growth as is your pH and Organic Matter.
Second, your numbers are definitely not the highest I've seen (believe it or not), and many folks are super successful growing with a soil profile like this.
Third, you definitely don't need to buy any more goat manure!

As for how this happened. The first thing to note is that your Aluminum is extremely low. The number given for Phosphorous in soil tests isn't a "raw number," it represents the availability in the soil profile which is a function of the actual quantity of P versus other elements (especially Al). If you had more Aluminum in your soil, the Phosphorous number would go down dramatically.

This is absolutely not a recommendation to add Aluminum, just an explanation of why the number is so high. You can take a deep dive here: https://www.aces.edu/blog/topics/crop-production/understanding-phosphorus-forms-and-their-cycling-in-the-soil/

That said, your extremely high macronutrients indicate that your garden definitely doesn't need additional compost or rotted manure. It's very easy to build up Phosphorous and Potassium in the soil by using excessive manure, even when it's well rotted, since these elements aren't particularly mobile in the soil and they're only taken up by plants in small quantities.

Here's a great article from University of Minnesota with lots of details about what you can do: https://extension.umn.edu/nutrient-management-specialty-crops/correct-too-much-compost-and-manure

The long and the short of it is: Keep growing veggies as usual and don't add any additional nutrition until you test again.

Hope this helps and Happy 4th of July!

Thank you very much, Lisa,

I had wondered if there might have been a discrepancy with the results, and intended to write to UVM this morning and ask. Thanks for being proactive. My wife and I have not bought a vegetable for home consumption since 2009 (large organic garden, hoop house, and root cellar are essential), so soil health is crucial!

Thank you,
Jeffrey Hamelman
Hartland

On 2024-07-05 12:51, University of Vermont wrote: