Gardening - Feeding Your Hungry Plants

Okay, you have your soil prepped, garden ready, plants put in, watering organized, Now what? Well, plants need food and there are many ways to feed them.

There is always a debate between organic feeders and fertilizers. Truth is, your plants really don't care a lot. If they need nitrogen, they are not fussy about the source. The real question is how much work do you want to do, how much money are you willing to spend and what is the nature of your soil.

If you have poor soil and no chance to make compost or bring in top soil, then you will need to feed a lot and you will need good commercial fertilizers.  Get a cheap one but be careful. One of the cheapest is Milorganite which is processed sewage. Now this is excellent for lawns and flowers, although it is a bit smelly, but processed does not mean sterile so do not use it around anything you might eat. At the other end of the scale, you have stuff like MiracleGro. This soluble food is wonderful but you have to apply it frequently and boy does it get expensive. Something in between these 2 extremes will do, just follow instructions, do not overfeed, and be ready to water after feeding or you will burn your plants to a crisp. Note: time released fertilizers are not any better but they are more costly; the 1 advantage is, you don't have to be as concerned with watering immediately.

There are fine organic formula fertilizers and they are better for eco-systems. They dissolve slowly, so your feedings last longer. But, they are expensive unless you mix your own. I have done this; you just mix stuff like bone meal and manure, and a few other things, depending on what your soil needs. How do you know that? Send a soil sample to a agricultural agency, an agricultural college or even take it to a nursery. they will test it, often for free, and tell you just what to use. Important note: if you use manure, make sure you buy sterilized manure, otherwise it will stink and you will not want to eat the produce (it will likely contain a bunch of unpleasant bacteria).

Before you do any of this, I urge you to compost. Compost is organic matter and contains pretty much everything your plants will need, plus, it is cheap. If you plant in compost rich soil, there is an excellent chance you won't need any fertilizers and even if you do, you will need very little. Less work and less cost make for a happier gardener.

Gardening - It Starts with the Soil

It is easy to go through most of your days without giving soil much thought, but it is, in fact, one of the most important and complex substances on Earth. The few feet of soil, the stuff we walk on every day, is essential for life and is, itself, full of life. In that soil, grows all the plants, with a few rare exceptions, that feed us, feed the animals we eat and put oxygen back in the air.

If you dig up a little soil at random and look closely, you will find an amazing array of life, Insects and worms, for sure, but, with the aid of magnification, a fantastic range of bizarre little critters abound. Bacteria and protozoans and many tiny, tiny crustaceans and other tiny beings engage in the same dance of who eats who that we do on a larger scale. My favorite is the delightful water bear. In dry conditions, this little animals retreats into a small, hard spore but, add water, and it expand into something that, when looked at with magnification, does resemble a wee, tiny bear, and it is a voracious feeder. Soil is very much a living substance and deserves more attention than we give it.

But, this blog is called The Practical American, not the Philosopher, so let's get practical. There are 3 basic types of soil. Sand is large grained and very porous. It holds neither water nor nutrients well. Silt is a bit finer. It drains a little slower and still does not hold nutrients well. Clay packs into a hard mass and holds water well, often too well, and while it retains nutrients, roots often do not like being wet and they don't like being packed tightly.

Ideally, your soil will be a balanced blend of the 3 with a 4th substance, humus, bits of organic matter, mixed thoroughly throughout. Well, nothing is ideal, but don't despair. First, decide what you want to grow, and where. Some plants thrive in poor sandy soil; obviously, you plant them together. Others demand rich soil, so, obviously, you plant them together. In other words, don't go rushing to fix your soil until you know what you are doing.

The same holds for your soil's ph, the measure of how acid or alkaline your soil is. Some like acid, some don't. adjust accordingly. (balanced ph is 7. you can test with a kit you can buy at any garden shop or send a sample to a County or State Agricultural Center, they usually will do the test for free)

Generally speaking, your soil should be between ph 5.5 and 7.5 and be a pretty even mix of sand, silt, clay, and humus. To make it more acid, add sulfur, more alkaline, add lime ( the amounts per area will be explained on the package). To mix soil types, you can go to your garden shop and buy bags of each and mix them in, but that is too much work. Or, you can order top soil, either from a nursery or any trucking company that delivers gravel, rock etc. It is sold by the cubic yard. They dump it in your yard, then wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow, you move it and work it into your soil. Again, that is a lot of work. But, if you have a bit of time and patience, there is a cheaper and easier way. Use compost that you make yourself and I will talk about that in my next post.