Lots of gardening "recipes" (such as for potting houseplants) call for "good garden loam". This type of soil is considered most desireable for gardening. I would like to know, do any of you have this sort of soil? My 'native' area (where Julie still lives) has mostly sand. My current environment has mostly clay. I wouldn't call it clayey-loam, as I have seen listed in some resources.

I've never seen loam, as far as I know. If you have some, would you consider sending me about a sandwich bag full, so I can experience it?

Oh, this is kind of funny. My brother had a large pile of dirt. I asked him what he was going to do with it. He told me that was his topsoil. I almost died laughing -- it was nearly pure sand! Of course, down here, if you order top soil, you'll get nearly pure clay. I don't think topsoil or loam actually exist anymore -- all blown away with the wind, no doubt to end up in the ocean where it will do no one any good at all . . .

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2001

Answers

If you get some, save it. I wanna see it too!!!

(my experience in ordering a load of 'top soil'....when I did a particulate test on it it came out as pure sand. The only organic matter in it was chopped up Quack Grass rhizomes... ooh. Ahh. Sign me up for that!!!)(thank heavens for lots of horses, even if my raised beds did come up with a fine crop of apple seedlings this spring)

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2001

Yep,do now! Made it.

Actually we have places on the farm that have pretty good soil.I had the soil sientist make up the conservation plan and looked at the soil types to find where to start. Some even limey enough.

In Western Indiana,we had sandy loam when we lived there.High water table.

Up at dreary Erie,the mistake by the lake,it was great black loamy soil. High site one.Flat and high water table.Great growing medium. Beautiful 3+ log trees. Huge mosquitoes. Too much snow. Way too much rain.I wore sneakers when I worked,be I was often wading in the woods. Needed something that would dry out good!

Needless to say,I don't live there anymore.

And,Nope,you cannot have any of our dirt.Nick worships it,after all:o)

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2001

We have it in our woods and along the edge of the woods and what we have made through 14 years of composting, but mostly we have very heavy clay. Like the kind that when it is wet it sticks to your shoes in great big clumps until you get taller and taller and your feet feel like lead. (I am not kidding here folks) Joy, send me your snail mail address and I will send you a baggie full.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2001

Much of East Texas has what is considered good garden loam. There's about 80 acres of it immediately east of our house. Course, it all belongs to someone else and has trees on it.....

My own land here is either rather upright and therefore not suitable for planting because it will all wash away, or it is clay. My parents had their garden spot bulldozed out to clear off 50 years or so of accumulated sweet gum trees and sumac, poison ivy and greenbriers. The night the caterpillar left it rained 6 inches and washed all that nice, loose topsoil down the creek, never to be seen again. Such is life.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2001

I love my dirt! I tell my husband that I married him for our artisian well and 2+ feet of top soil that I quess is sandy loam. What's so cool about is that a half mile from my house is rocky and sandy. We live in the flood plain of a river that now has a hydro electric damn. Our sweet little homestead is surrounded by the foot hills of the Ozark mountains in Arkansas and we have mounds behind the house,"WE" say they were made by native americans. Ain't nothin like sweet country livin....Sherry

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2001

Diane, I sent you my address, thanks for your help.

Funny story. When I first got a house, Julie was there helping me remove daylilies from a slope (we were going to transplant them elsewhere). We'd dug up quite a few and exposed a bunch of the heavy clay soil. All of a sudden she was "clay skiing" backwards down the hill! Pretty funny! Fortunately, it was just a few feet to more level ground.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2001

!!!)(thank heavens for lots of horses, even if my raised beds did come up with a fine crop of apple seedlings this spring)

Julie, were those horse apple seedlings?

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2001

Joy, when we lived north of Madison, WI, We had the best loam we ever experienced. Everyone around us had good soil except for the intense chemical farmers (cause or effect?).

Our top soil here in the Ozarks is about as good as our subsoil was up north, and we only do well in the garden here because of our intensive raised beds with huge amounts of organics added every year.

We also found that in WI, dairy farmers would gladly come out and spread manure on our land (free) just to get rid of the stuff. Around here it's like gold!

-- Anonymous, May 20, 2001

How far north of Madison, David? Around Portage? Further north? All clay here, as far as I can tell!

-- Anonymous, May 20, 2001

Well, my soil is basically potter's clay reinforced with boulders. But I promised my better half that I'd import soil for her, when she agreed to move here from the place up the road, where we'd been TRYING to make the soil better for 20 years.

Now, believe it or not, we have actual loamy soil. It grows almost everything like a champ.

But it was not cheap, and I'll still be buying a few more loads every few years, I suspect.

JOJ

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2001