lime enriched soil ? (weed growing)

[geordie mark]

so i have the question to ask on lime enriched soil ive heard people talk about where can i buy some as i am gunna grow my own weeds for the winter months (dandelion) and all of the types i dont have growing readily in the garden.

[Andy Robertson]

Hi there,
I have just posted some pictures up of my coldframe, the top soil I used to grow the weeds was mixed with lime stone flour and maxi crop calci feed for nutrients.
Both bought on-line, you can get 25kg bags of lime stone flour from Wells poultry very cheap.
Hope this helps
Andy

[geordie mark]

Thanks Andy I've just been looking at them

[Ozric Jonathan]

If we add lime to the soil this can have the effect of releasing lots of minerals which may be taken up by the plant and not only the lime. It's often used as a fertilizer. So the effect of liming is not only to add calcium to the plant content.

Plantains are very good for calcium content even when grown on acid soils.

Tortoises don't love plantain to the same degree that they like dandies though.

[geordie mark]

any ideas on a set amount for limestone flour/ soil mixture people ?

[Ozric Jonathan]

Hi Mark. If doing this scientifically the PH of the soil is measured first using one of those kits from a garden centre type place. Once we know the PH of the soil we can find out how much lime should be added per square meter to change the PH by a certain amount. This kind of info can be found on gardening and allotment keeping websites.

But I don't know of anyone working out how much limestone flour to add to achieve a given effect. But worth looking here
: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...1090727AA5iKi7

One way is to just add some limestone flour to the soil and work it in. Some of it will be taken up by plants. This is not very scientific tho!

Lime is sold in a few different forms. I personally wouldn't use some of them as they can be very harmful if they touch the skin etc.

I think limestone flour is safe to handle and I have tried adding this to soil. I didn't test the PH of the soil so it was a bit random. If doing anything like this it is worth buying the large tubs of limestone flour which work out quite cheap.

I have also tried calcified seaweed. This has a load of calcium in it and various other things.

Limestone flour is about 40% calcium and I guess the rest must be carbon.

I'm not sure if all this is worth bothering with. It can be more trouble than adding calcium to leaves before they are fed.

[geordie mark]

I was thinking this to be honest and really when all 3 of my tortoises are happy to munch away on supplememted food there's really no point. I'm waiting for my limestone flour from the SW shop to arrive actually as the last week I've had to scrape The cuttlefish onto the plants ha !

[Kbaker]

I have been using "lime" on my tortoise lawn for many years. It is not a fertilizer and I use a brand that is "natural" which is mostly calcium and magnesium. I do not supplement with calcium any other way for my Sulcatas that graze on the lawn. So I guess what I am saying is I have used it and I feel my tortoises have done well on it.

Kevin

[Ozric Jonathan]

Kevin I maybe havn't explained it properly but the action of a liming agent on soil makes other nutrients more available for plants to uptake. So although it's not a fertilizer the effect it has on some soils is the same which is why allotment keepers often use it.