I thought 125 mm of rain would wash all the salt away. Not so - the salt is still there, but as I've said each week it is not as high as I expected it to be. It was obvious during the rain that water had trouble infiltrating into the soil. Water ran off the beds into the furrows. It took two days and 100 mm of rain before the deeper detector collected a sample. In other parts of the garden, detectors at the same depth responded with half that amount of rain. Clearly the salt in my washing powder is changing the soil structure.Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Week 8: Salt
I thought 125 mm of rain would wash all the salt away. Not so - the salt is still there, but as I've said each week it is not as high as I expected it to be. It was obvious during the rain that water had trouble infiltrating into the soil. Water ran off the beds into the furrows. It took two days and 100 mm of rain before the deeper detector collected a sample. In other parts of the garden, detectors at the same depth responded with half that amount of rain. Clearly the salt in my washing powder is changing the soil structure.
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2 comments:
Hi Richard, could you describe the mechanism by which the soil structure is being changed by the washing powder?
Phosphorous free washing powder has Sodium in place of the Phosporous. So if you reuse your washing machine water in the garden, do not use phosphorous free washing powder.
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