benefits of liming

[Plot10]

Just chucking in my tuppenceworth but I save all our eggshells for the week - between 15 and 20 and crisp them up in the cooling oven after sunday lunch, put them in a bag, crunch them up and sprinkle on my brassica bed. I had my first ever cauliflowers using this method last year - no lime involved. I've never done a PH test but I reckon my soil is probably on the acid side due to the granite.

[Four Seasons]

People have been persuaded, relatively recently, by very clever marketing that they need to go to the GC and buy a packet of this, a bottle of that ... it's not true. Before chemical fertiliser, TV & magazines, gardeners didn't go and buy all this stuff ~ they just got on with it. For 1000s of years.

Nobody fertilises, digs or prunes a forest, yet it manages to grow and produce fruit, nuts and valuable wood.

Just garden with your soil, and only buy stuff if you find that you need it, not because some advert has convinced you to part with your money

I have a great deal of sympathy for this view but just going your own way and not paying attention to sound advice could lead to a 'repent at leisure' situation.
Gardeners have been advised for donkeys years (well since the 19th century anyway) to lime their soil against possible club root fungus and whilst you might get away with ignoring this advise you are playing with the possibility of ruining your soil for any further growing of brassica.
A friend of mine did just this and is ruing not paying attention to a liming rotation. He now cannot grow anything that is subject to club root and apart from dig up all his soil and replace it he's stuck with it.

[Two_Sheds]

Gardeners have been advised for donkeys years (well since the 19th century anyway) to lime their soil against possible club root .

Yes you're right, but we don't always have to follow advice that has always been given. As we discover more about things (not just soil) we adjust our behaviour accordingly. It makes no sense (to me) to throw a substance on the soil just because that's the perceived wisdom. I like to know why I'm doing it, and what the alternatives are. I might decide not to grow a crop that doesn't suit my soil.

"Club root is reduced (but not eliminated) by raising the soil pH by liming. " source


My spuds suffer from scab, and alkaline soil exacerbates that, but it doesn't cause it. I could spend a fortune and many hours trying to acidify my entire soil, but I don't. I grow spuds in containers of leafmould, sunk in the soil. I'm not chucking loads of stuff on trying to change the nature of my soil, I'm working with it and growing crops that suit my alkaline soil (brassicas, ironically).

[RedRuth]

Just chucking in my tuppenceworth but I save all our eggshells for the week - between 15 and 20 and crisp them up in the cooling oven after sunday lunch, put them in a bag, crunch them up and sprinkle on my brassica bed. I had my first ever cauliflowers using this method last year - no lime involved. I've never done a PH test but I reckon my soil is probably on the acid side due to the granite.

This is interesting, our Calabrese never does very well and we wondered if it was a pH issue. I put all my eggshells in the compost anyway so maybe I'll try this. Thanks.

[marchogaeth]

My soil is pH 5-5.1 and clayish. I find the whole liming thing a nightmare because despite coming out of grassland, I think it needs some organic matter over and above my compost as I really don't think the structure it has is very sound (which is linked to the acidity - I know.).

Liming will improve it's structure but TS is correct, you shouldn't use lime and manure close together. I've always understood at least 6 months apart or you can get chemical reactions between the muck and lime.

Club Root is a fungus, your land either has it or it doesn't. If it has got it, liming can help but you need to get up to pH 7 to really have an effect. The best method is no brassicas for 5-7 years including cruciferous weeds (sorry sound like a text book). Eggs shell in the planting hole can help, apparently. John Seymour also talks about using a bit of rhubarb but that seem counter intuitive!

[Four Seasons]

Well there is a difference between keeping lime and manure apart from not liming at all. You have answered the Op's question in your own post. Liming is a precaution against club root not a cure. You ignore it at the risk of damaging your growing potential for brassica and related crops for a number of years as you have pointed out.

[marchogaeth]

No, because if you don't have club root and you exercise all the precautions, like never buying in plants, not composting brassica stems you have bought in your weekly veg shops, weeding out carry over plants like shepherd's purse and rotation you may never get club root and if your pH is slightly alkaline you may never need lime.

[Two_Sheds]

if your pH is slightly alkaline you may never need lime.

Chicken manure pellets are a source of lime too, so you don't need to add lime if you're using pellets

[rary]

Gardeners have been advised for donkeys years (well since the 19th century anyway) to lime their soil against possible club root fungus and whilst you might get away with ignoring this advise you are playing with the possibility of ruining your soil for any further growing of brassica.
A friend of mine did just this and is ruing not paying attention to a liming rotation. He now cannot grow anything that is subject to club root and apart from dig up all his soil and replace it he's stuck with it.

20 odd years ago I had club root in the garden from planting brassica plants purchased from an out side source. At the time I thought that I was finished for planting cabbage etc. and then I came across a reference to planting your cabbage early enough to have the well established before June which seem to be the time for the club root fungus to start being active possibly due to temp. or something,( I am sure someone will know the reason,) on trying this the following year I planted out in the middle of March and when I harvested them the cabbages were "stoaters" there was some club root present but did not affect the plants.

[marchogaeth]

Chicken manure pellets are a source of lime too, so you don't need to add lime if you're using pellets

Just to be clear, poultry manure is in the range of pH 6.5-8.0. If you want to be clearer about what you are using, you could buy some pH paper and check as it is quite variable. The pH 8 stuff will have an effect (on neutral pH 6-7) if applied at typical rates of manuring.