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terra rossa

For the last ten days I did some gardening in my daughter's garden in Mountain View, CA. Also some hiking on the coast and redwoods. And the striking result is some sort of jealousy on the good soil as compared to the poor soil of Grabov Rat (the peninsula, not the website, of course). Miser- able soil, that is more appropriate.

The dominant type of mediterranean soil is terra rossa (Italian for red soil), a type of red clay soil produced by the weathering of limestone, along with non-soluble rocks. The residual deposits are rich in iron hydroxides which give the red to orange color. That's a general statement. What is terra rossa like in a particular mediterranean area, that's another story. Thin soil and high stone content on Grabov Rat make gardener's life unfortunate. When I dig a foot deep hole for planting, the stone to soil ratio is typically 3:1 !! Then I remove, by hand and sieve, most of the stones larger than half inch and mix in an equal amount of humus from my com- post site or commercial top soil (not of mediter- ranean origin). The resulting mixture, which I don't dare to call mediterranean soil, has stone to soil ratio close to 1:1.

If you think that the term terra rossa is not scien- tific enough, you are not alone. The UNESCO/FAO World map equivalent is the chromic luvisols (a suborder of the luvisols), and the USDA soil taxonomy equivalent is the rhodustalfs (a suborder of the ustalfs). Scientists have to do something, don't they? The classification could be a very consuming task, like the 3:1 ratio.

midday moon at Half Moon Bay

 2012-12-02 

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Krešimir J. Adamić