What Ammendments to add to Old Soil... but on a budget.
I haven't used my garden since last summer. What I grew then was peppers and tomatoes. I need advise on what amendments to add to bring the soil back to life while on a budget.
I would add compost and a starter fertilizer with low numbers. You can use organic fertilizers but they are best put in the garden at least 6-8 weeks before planting since the nutrients are released slowly and need to be converted before they are available to plants.
I still think getting a baseline soil test is a good investment. Mine costs about $25. I have repeated it every 3-4 years and found that it has not changed much and I add what was originally recommended. Only one garden plot had a significant drop in phosphorus from 250 to about 80. The garden still only required 37 ppm. So, in a couple of years I will test again and see how much phosphorus I need to add.
Letting a garden go fallow is not a bad idea, it gives it a chance to rest. But putting in a cover crop or green manure helps keeps weeds down and prevents soil erosion. Tilling in the cover crop also replenishes the soil.
I still think getting a baseline soil test is a good investment. Mine costs about $25. I have repeated it every 3-4 years and found that it has not changed much and I add what was originally recommended. Only one garden plot had a significant drop in phosphorus from 250 to about 80. The garden still only required 37 ppm. So, in a couple of years I will test again and see how much phosphorus I need to add.
Letting a garden go fallow is not a bad idea, it gives it a chance to rest. But putting in a cover crop or green manure helps keeps weeds down and prevents soil erosion. Tilling in the cover crop also replenishes the soil.
There should be organic liquid fertilizers that make you go around the slow release problem. As well as there are tons of slowrelease non-organic fertilizers. Care to elaborate a bit further?imafan26 wrote:I would add compost and a starter fertilizer with low numbers. You can use organic fertilizers but they are best put in the garden at least 6-8 weeks before planting since the nutrients are released slowly and need to be converted before they are available to plants.
This is true. However, jnunez asked for cost effective amendments. Unless (s)he makes their own compost and grows a green manure to add nitrogen, and gets manure free and hot composts it, the most cost effective will be a synthetic fertilizer. Organic fertilizers will cost more. They should not, but they just do. You have to add more (volume) of the organic fertilizer and add supplement them more frequently especially when they are not being added all of the time.
The plot was planted in heavy feeders tomatoes and peppers and then let go. Leaving a plot fallow does allow it to rest but unless compost and nutrients were replenished in the meantime, there would not have been much to help feed the microbes in the soil web. Organic fertilizers have low numbers so it takes more in volume to be comparable to the nutrient load of a synthetic fertilizer. I actually do both, synthetic fertilizers do not add organic matter to support the soil web but the microbes and plants readily consume the nutrients. However, soil tilth and the soil web require organic matter, so I add compost which adds carbon, aerates the soil temporarily, but does not add a lot of nutrients.
The plot was planted in heavy feeders tomatoes and peppers and then let go. Leaving a plot fallow does allow it to rest but unless compost and nutrients were replenished in the meantime, there would not have been much to help feed the microbes in the soil web. Organic fertilizers have low numbers so it takes more in volume to be comparable to the nutrient load of a synthetic fertilizer. I actually do both, synthetic fertilizers do not add organic matter to support the soil web but the microbes and plants readily consume the nutrients. However, soil tilth and the soil web require organic matter, so I add compost which adds carbon, aerates the soil temporarily, but does not add a lot of nutrients.