You?ll never stop improving the soil, but sometimes you can coast for a while and just tweak things a bit. An annual soil test will tell you where you?re headed. Be sure to write ORGANIC on your test request, as most labs will automatically give chemical farming info. Natural inputs come in organic and mineral forms, or a combination of the two. Organic Matter is basically unbroken-down compost and the manure. Both contain varying amounts of nitrogen, and both CAN contain various amounts of various minerals, esp phosphorus and potassium, but there's no guarantee as to levels, because the compost ingredients and the animal feed nutrient values vary all over the place. HUMUS is OM that has been completely broken down by soil microbes, and is the long-term source of nutrients. They are not one and the same. A volatile nutrient like nitrogen can be washed out, blown away, off-gassed due to plowing, or used by the crop. Any of these can reduce the amount of what you think you've got, even from week to week. Minerals come from the soil, from broken-down rock. Some of them are in the organic matter, but not everything your plants need; some just plain isn?t there and won?t be there unless you make a point of specifically adding it. The more crop residue you return to the soil, the more minerals it will retain. Your local soil and climate is going to affect what your soil contains and maintains. If you live in a warmish area with not much more than 25" of rain and a fair (but not excessive) amount of clay, your soil will hold more nutrients than a rainy place. If you live in a wet climate, quite a few nutrients will be flushed out of the root zone by the excessive rain. If you live in a hot place like SoCal, TX, AZ or FL, the heat cooks the OM out of the (usually) sandy soil, but you might retain more minerals. What do your soil test results look like from your unfertilized soil? That's a major clue as to what you're going to have to keep up (or suppress), so find a spot that hasn?t been fertilized or mineralized if you have never gotten a soil test. And your soil pH is going to influence how much of the various nutrients are going to be available to the plants. Just because it?s sitting there in the soil doesn?t mean the nutrients are available. Here in the PNW, soil tests show how the heavy rainfall leaches out nitrogen, potassium, calcium, magnesium and boron -- IOW, all the main important stuff. We either have to keep adding it, or grow fall cover crops that will bind up some/most of those minerals and hold it until the cover crop is incorporated in spring. Some things, like boron, have to be added continually. What levels are ideal? It depends on what you're growing, as different food plants need different amounts of nutrients. Corn is the big nutrient hog. "Jolj" gave a basic list above. If your soil is nutritionally balanced, you can plant things closer together. If it isn?t quite up to par, space them further apart than recommended so their roots can search for nutrients. Here is what I?ve been able to glean from various sources, so far. Please chime in, folks, if you think my figures are off. Also, different labs use different methods, and those methods may produce different results. It?s not advisable to skip around from lab to lab. Find one you like and stay with them. Nitrogen: 5% good organic matter should have an estimated nitrogen release of 100 lbs of nitrogen per acre (100 ppm). Is that enough for the crop you have in mind? If you have too much nitrogen due to an overload of compost, the nitrogen will drive some calcium out of the soil, and your crop yields will suffer. If you add a LOT of OM and you have disease or insect problems, something else is off, probably due to the excessive nitrogen levels. Too much of anything will almost always cause trouble, including drinking excessive amounts of water. Moderation is the key. Phosphorus: 30 to 60 ppm. How much is available depends on your soil pH ? the closer to 6.5, the better. Phosphorus: 120-200 ppm, but it has to be available, not just sitting there inert. Calcium and Magnesium: The total combination of calcium and magnesium should total 80%. Normal soil should be near 68% calcium + 12% magnesium. But if your soil is sandy, 60 + 20 would be better. A heavier clay soil, 70 + 10. Keep in mind that although lime contains calcium, you have to know your soil pH and your calcium/magnesium percentages to be able to choose the right calcium-based minerals to use. Sulfur: 20-25 ppm, up to 50 ppm for high-yielding crops like woody plants and pasture. Sodium: Some of the areas of the country tend toward excess, above 3%. Other parts of the U.S. go the other way, and a deficiency is often less than 0.5%. Micronutrients only make a difference when all of the above primary and secondary nutrients are balanced. Boron: 0.8 ? 1.5 ppm. This is the least stable of the elements, your crops need a steady supply, it can?t be reused. Boron is one of the few elements that can?t be built up, so if it isn?t naturally in your soil, you may have to add it every year, and maybe even through the growing season. Chlorine is chloride: it normally isn?t deficient, esp if your calcium level is good; but excesses (usually much over 250 ppm) are known, esp in compacted soils, or known saline soils, and it isn?t easy to deal with. Molybdenum: 0.01-10 ppm. Copper: 2-10 ppm, but 5-10 is best. Most soils are deficient, but once you get your level up to par, copper is stable enough to stay there for quite a while. Copper and Molybedenum work together, so test and treat for it together properly. Iron: 200+ ppm. Check for it in chalky, high-calcium soils, where it is most likely to be deficient. Excess iron isn?t a problem. Iron works with manganese and sulfur, so check levels for all three. Lime added within 3 years will affect soil tests. Manganese: 40-250 ppm, but best results in 80-125 ppm range. Zinc: 6-12 ppm, 10 is excellent. Once the levels are up to par, it is easy to keep it up on clay and humus. Too much nitrogen will tie up zinc. Suggestion: for more info, get hold of Neal Kinsey?s book Hands-On Agronomy, available in the library system. Sue

Well, what you have there is a link to a Powerpoint presentation by Doug O'Brien at Cabrillo College. Sadly, all it proves is that Doug O'Brien of Cabrillo College doesn't know what he is talking about if he thinks you get a downward pH adjustment of 0.1 every time you put a ton of lime on an acre of soil. Neither calcium nor sulfate has a direct effect on soil pH and that's all that gypsum is...calcium and sulfate. The only time you will have a downward shift in the pH due to gypsum application is when it is applied to a sodic soil (i.e. SAR greater than 15) which has an elevated pH due to that sodium imbalance. (On a side note, very often the text book rise in pH does not accompany sodic soil conditions) Only when sodicity causes an elevation of the pH does gypsum help decrease that pH. And even in those cases the effect is indirect and has to do with improved soil structure allowing for the leaching of sodium rather than any reactions that calcium goes into. If you need to lower your soil pH, elemental sulfur is your better bet. As far as why it is important...it is primarily a nutrient availability issue. If the pH is too high or too low, fewer nutrients will be available for a number of reasons. Also, if it gets really low you can start having toxicity issues. I guess if you want to get into it more we can start a new thread.

Well, shrubs, I don't disturb the soil much with my method of growing potatoes. I simply lay the seed potatoes on the surface and cover with mulch, usually chopped leaves. Harvesting involves pulling the mulch off and picking up the spuds. Having said that, while Ma Nature doesn't get out there with her 6 HP Troy-Bilt tiller, I don't see her growing much in the way of eggplant, peppers and tomatoes out in the wild either. I wonder why that is? I'm in favor of a program of limited tilling when it is necessary. When is it necessary? Every garden or field will be different but if the difference is not tilling and waiting years for the earthworms to do their thing so I can grow a carrot or getting organic matter into the soil and crops off it in the same year, then some form of tilling is the way to go for me. I double dig most of my raised garden beds. The disturbance of the soil structure seems to have little to no visible negative effects and I for one am not alarmed at harming the mycorrhizal fungi. Nor am I going to avoid tilling when it will benefit me in order to avoid injuring the earthworms. (Earthworms, which as noted in other threads, are noxious invaders of this northern forest I call home.) Nor will I rely soley on methods Ma Nature uses to build soil, since in my limited years left on the planet and my need to feed myself during those years, I recognize that Ma Nature has had approximately a 10,000 year head start on me in the soil-building department. Wayne

Thanks for all of the replies...it's taken me awhile to get back online, I've had sick kids. All this info is good. In my case, the cabinets are framed (inset, Shaker style), with maple plywood boxes and maple hardwood (which will be painted). All lower cabinetry is drawers with the exception of cabinets for the pantry (floor to ceiling, 15" interior depth), the cabinets under the sinks, a tray cabinet over the wall oven, a utility closet (floor to ceiling) and dish cabinet (counter to ceiling). Based on this, I will stick with the 5/8 inches unless someone else chimes in with objections/different advice. Live_Wire, thanks for the info on the hanging rail, that was a good reminder to double-check these details. Babushka cat, you are right on. Thank goodness this cabinetmaker has worked a lot with other folks on our team and their end product is excellent. But I agree, some items were verbally agreed upon and not spelled out in our contract. We are lucky in that the cabinetmaker is standing by their word. But others in our situation might not have been so lucky. My recommendation to those who are using a custom cabinetmaker is to ensure everything is laid out in the contract beforehand. Unfortunately, in our situation, some items were not apparent until we reviewed the shop drawings. So it's important to work with someone that you can trust to do the right thing in the end and stand by their work. And I'm willing to pay for items that I think are fair (i.e., we did not discuss and are expensive add-ons); and our cabinetmaker has not charged us for smaller items/changes. A good end result! Davidro1, I already had chosen our cabinet style, but just strongly recommended frameless to my best friend who is redoing her kitchen. Her space is limited, so even more important to utilize space efficiently!