I have been composting regularly and stepped up the compost piles of leaf, straw from chicken bedding, garden, and kitchen waste to do the majority of the garden every year as opposed to a section every year. Partly due to cost, partly to a healthier garden and food.. mostly to achieve a more natural and healthy living soil. I am attempting a switch to homemade soil feeding.
probably easier than it sounds in all the different threads - hopefully I am not over simplifying it and everyone can help fill in the blanks as I prep for next years garden.
I used to till and drop 10-10-10 of whatever was a good price three times during the season and compost areas in a rotation while adding specific pre packaged blends locally to the heavy feeders. I believe that I should be able to till in 2 inches of compost in the fall and spring and water with a 2 gallon hose can monthly with an epsom salt and vinegar with fish emulsion and bone meal. (or some similar recipe) for a general fertilizer. I'm working with just over 2000 square feet.( flower, iris, and berry beds included)
the heavy feeders I will hit with an extra feed.. like extre vinegar in the berries and extra something (not sure yet what works best ) for asparagus and roses..
I could use help filling in blanks or hearing recipies for general and specific fertilizers.
how do you use soil additives and fertilizer recipies?
Have you had a soil test for ph and nutrient content? That sort of thing is a pretty good guide on how to proceed.
That's a lot of amendments - you might overdoing it.
Are you having a problem with your plants?
Frank
I will be testing with an over the counter deal this week - as soon as the sweet potatoes come out. The garden did pretty good. Not as good as the local farms, but better than most - even the okra made it before the frost, and I managed to fill the freezer with sauce ( most neighbors lost all to the blight)
I will always use fugicide, But want to drop the fertilizer to maybe a spring time application when I plant. I tend to crowd the beds as the variety is pretty wide ranging..I also put up a hoop house and harvest through the snowy winter - some beds 4 crops in a year.
standard 10-10-10 isn't really seeming to be working well in some areas, production is declining. I want to get some basic nutrients back into the soil - minerals and micro organisms.. ( there were not a lot of worms the last two years).
I think a season or two of salts and other not commonly added nutrients other than NPK would be benificial. and after the tests, I can cater the mix as I refuse to buy several different bags of fertilizer - almose 50 lbs of 10 10 10 kept it going along with the lawn for 15 years now.
time for a diet change for the soil;?
http://foodforeveryone.org/fertilizers/
I garden in containers using the cheapest potting soil I can find at places like Lowes and Walmart because as sorry as it is, it's better than what's in my yard. I've been reusing some of it since 2005 and there simply can't be anything good left in it. I add 10-10-10, compost and pine bark fines and even though it had earthworms, I felt something was missing.
This year I tried the micro nutrients from the linked site with 8-8-8 and got great results. I had left over triple 13 that I used straight at transplant time and then a teaspoon of the mixture when my tomatoes started blooming and weekly as long as they continued to set.
I'm convinced that the micros bring a balance that allows the plants to do more with less. A tsp. of fert for a big tomato plant really did the job. The instructions call for using 16-16-16 which isn't available here. I couldn't even get triple 13 when I wanted it. The local seed and feed had pallets of triple 8 so I just went with it. I also got a 50 lb sack of epsom salts a lot cheaper than those little bags at the drug store. I had to order the calcium nitrate but still haven't opened it because I mixed a batch before I got it and it worked without it.
Mixing your own is a bit of a pain because the micros are like fine sand that wants to settle to the bottom. You have to keep stirring as you use it. I had a bunch of those big plastic coffee cans with the lids and just weighed the ingredients and made it in those. They have a nice handle and are perfect for carrying around the garden.
Whatever kind you use, I think micros are magical.
JJ, now is a great time to send in soil samples and see what the Ag office test compares with your over-the-counter test kit. As Frank/tarheel says, "That's a lot of amendments - you might overdoing it"...once you alter your soil with too many additives it's oftentimes even harder to get them corrected again.
Definitely get a pH test. Or is that why you are using vinegar? Vinegar offers very little to your plants in the way of nutrition but will have an effect on your soil pH, depending on how much you use. (There is a claim that vinegar offers 50 different trace minerals but I've never seen professional research proving it, yet, that proves it. Besides, with good micros and bio-activity n your soil you'll have met those those needs.)
"I think a season or two of salts and other not commonly added nutrients other than NPK would be benificial"
If you're referring to Epsom salts then no, a season or two will have no effect. Epsom salts is the most highly water-soluble form of magnesium and won't stay put in your garden. It will easily leach out. (Keep in mind also that is has to go somewhere, either downstream, into your water table, rivers, wherever and become more harmful than helpful.) Besides, Connect soil may not be lacking in mg so again a soil test will let you know whether you need mg or not and if so what form you should be using. (For example, if your pH is leaning towards acid then liming with dolomitic limestone will raise your pH as well as offer mg, and mg in that form will stick around much longer than Epsom salt would.)
I have no doubt that if you add compost, as you mentioned above, do your best to feed the soil by encouraging bio/soil life, you can certainly reduce and/or do away with your 10-10-10 (after all, that, too, is highly water soluble and goes down the drain, so to speak).
Hope this helps.
Holler back and let us know what your test results show.
Shoe
jjconcepts - For years I've been mixing my own fertilizers, but this year I discovered one that contained almost the same stuff that I've been using - here's a link:
http://www.territorialseed.com/product/1639/22
In late August I purchased a 5lb bag to see how well the plants would respond, and was very pleased, so I am now the owner of a 50lb bag!
They also carry Mighty Micro:
http://www.territorialseed.com/product/126/22
and pellited chicken manure - which is great if your veggies have some yellowing leaves:
http://www.territorialseed.com/product/8113/22
I gave my tomatoes some "bat guano" which I think is what made them produce over 400lbs of maters!
Next season, I'm hoping all I'll need is what comes out of the 50lb bag - I only wish I had found it at the beginning of the summer instead of the end.
The Vinegar is more to get the berries moving.. I use pine needles and sulphur - but it seems some vinegar will not only feed, but keep the crickets away.
I think the micro nutrients sounds like what I am looking to get in, I will be testing several spots today but that is just NPK.
The magnesium in salts..... Neither N, P or K .. will I need to add or is - as I am asuming - the compost holding most ( i think nitrogen won'l last) in an available state.
after fifteen years easily - I think the production loss has more to do with the littles that make the main nutrients available. As in that the nutrients may be there - but are they in a form, or what do they need - to be available.
The threads are very informative.. I guess the question really is that the veggie plots seem to be wearing out - I really don't want to fill it with clover for a few years to rotate it. what is plan b to get production back to something. That is where the organic concept comes in..(they aren;t crazy - just misled)
-joe-
I have a lot of left over fish pellets that I bought to feed our pond fish. Can I put them in the veggie garden? They are made up of dried fish I think because that is what it smells like.
Loon - try putting a little around a couple of plants first to see how they react. If you don't have anything growing at the moment - just sprinkle the pellets into your compost bin.
Honeybee .. thanks for those links. I think a bag of nutrients is the way to go. no sense sweating over it too much.. maybe bone meal and a little salt. But I expect the extra compost i am making this year will help alot.
-joe-