I have several raised beds in 4'x4' cedar boxes and resting on landscape fabric. Soil is 60% Miracle Grow and 40% garden soil, no other additives. All 2015 vegetable vines have been composted and each bed is covered by straw for insulation.
Planting season begins in my location in mid-May. How best can I "recharge" these beds for the growing season besides an influx of new garden soil and aeration? Thanks for your time.
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
Compost!!! If you don't already have a compost pile, start one now. That won't help for this season, but you will be on your way. Best thing you can do for your garden. In the meantime, you can buy some compost/ mushroom compost/ aged composted manure.
After you plant (and seeds are up, if you are growing from seed), mulch well, preferably with greener stuff than straw or straw mixed with greener stuff - grass clippings, pulled weeds, etc. Over time the mulch breaks down and adds to the soil.
After you plant (and seeds are up, if you are growing from seed), mulch well, preferably with greener stuff than straw or straw mixed with greener stuff - grass clippings, pulled weeds, etc. Over time the mulch breaks down and adds to the soil.
You can add manure to the compost in the fall if you use it in the spring.
If you haven't done one before, do a soil test and ask for organic amendments if you want to go that route otherwise they will give you conventional fertilizer recommendations. Add the recommended amounts about 6 weeks before you plant. Organic fertilizers take time to become available. The recommended amount of nitrogen is divided into two or three applications. You can usually get a soil test done at your local land grant university extension office and the Master gardeners should be able to tell you how to collect the sample, where to send or bring it and also how to interpret the results. I usually do a soil test every 4 years or so just to check the balance. It saves me some money because my recommendations are to add very small amounts of nitrogen only. I am high or very high in phos, K, and Ca. The soil test helps me to add only the fertilizer in the type and quantity that is needed. Compost alone is not enough fertiility it has an NPK of 1-3:0.5:0.5 Miracle grow had fertilizer in it but most of that will be gone now.
Compare the average nutrient compostion of organic vs synthetic fertilizers. Organic fertilizers are inconsistent and ranges will vary depending on composition and batch.
https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/GHGS-15.pdf
https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/GHGS-13.pdf
Please add your location and zone to your profile It helps to know where you are.
Depending on where you are located you can put in a green manure. There are some that can over winter; they can add biomass or nitrogen to the garden if they are an inoculated legume. For your first crops help the garden out by adding an inoculated legume like cowpeas, hairy vetch, sunhemp (in the tropics), grains like oats, buckwheat add biomass and prevent erosion and weeds. Cover crops are tilled in when they flower. If you wait until the legumes have made pods the energy has transferred from the roots to the pods and if you eat the pods, the benefit is not to the soil.
https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.e ... /fs304.pdf
the UH is trialing cover crops for the home gardens realizing home gardeners don't have a lot of land and cannot let a field go fallow or put in a cover crop to rest it. They recommended if you do wide row gardening that every other row be planted in a cover crop (about 6 weeks. Cover crops grow fast) The cover crop is tilled in and the row fertilized and planted with the main crop. The other bed that was main crop will be harvested residues tilled in compost and fertilizer added and then rotated to a cover crop. Bonus, if you choose a biomass cover crop like buckwheat, when it flowers it does attract beneficial insects like bees and other predators and that helps keep the garden healthier.
If you haven't done one before, do a soil test and ask for organic amendments if you want to go that route otherwise they will give you conventional fertilizer recommendations. Add the recommended amounts about 6 weeks before you plant. Organic fertilizers take time to become available. The recommended amount of nitrogen is divided into two or three applications. You can usually get a soil test done at your local land grant university extension office and the Master gardeners should be able to tell you how to collect the sample, where to send or bring it and also how to interpret the results. I usually do a soil test every 4 years or so just to check the balance. It saves me some money because my recommendations are to add very small amounts of nitrogen only. I am high or very high in phos, K, and Ca. The soil test helps me to add only the fertilizer in the type and quantity that is needed. Compost alone is not enough fertiility it has an NPK of 1-3:0.5:0.5 Miracle grow had fertilizer in it but most of that will be gone now.
Compare the average nutrient compostion of organic vs synthetic fertilizers. Organic fertilizers are inconsistent and ranges will vary depending on composition and batch.
https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/GHGS-15.pdf
https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/GHGS-13.pdf
Please add your location and zone to your profile It helps to know where you are.
Depending on where you are located you can put in a green manure. There are some that can over winter; they can add biomass or nitrogen to the garden if they are an inoculated legume. For your first crops help the garden out by adding an inoculated legume like cowpeas, hairy vetch, sunhemp (in the tropics), grains like oats, buckwheat add biomass and prevent erosion and weeds. Cover crops are tilled in when they flower. If you wait until the legumes have made pods the energy has transferred from the roots to the pods and if you eat the pods, the benefit is not to the soil.
https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.e ... /fs304.pdf
the UH is trialing cover crops for the home gardens realizing home gardeners don't have a lot of land and cannot let a field go fallow or put in a cover crop to rest it. They recommended if you do wide row gardening that every other row be planted in a cover crop (about 6 weeks. Cover crops grow fast) The cover crop is tilled in and the row fertilized and planted with the main crop. The other bed that was main crop will be harvested residues tilled in compost and fertilizer added and then rotated to a cover crop. Bonus, if you choose a biomass cover crop like buckwheat, when it flowers it does attract beneficial insects like bees and other predators and that helps keep the garden healthier.
Get a soil test. Contact the local Master gardeners in your state. They can tell you how to collect the sample where to take it or send it, the forms you need to fill out and the cost. The turn around time is 2-6 weeks around here. On the form you would write general garden vegetables. If you want organic ask for organic recommendations otherwise you will get synthetic. They will send you a report and you can get the master gardeners to interpret it for you. My extension reports recommendations per 100 squ ft, but some places will report lbs per acre. 100 square ft ( 4x25 ft) = 0.00229568 acre. Always divide the nitrogen recommendation into 2-3 applications. 1/2 recommended amount to start 1/4 at flowering 1/4 at fruiting. Organic recommendations should go in 6 wks before if possible so they will be releasing by the time you plant. Organic will probably also require weekly compost tea and fish emulsion.
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
As soon as the ground can be worked. Compost/composted manure don't really feed the soil much until they break down and release their nutrients. It's why imafan suggested you may also need to supplement with things that provide more quickly available nutrients, like fish emulsion.MasonS123 wrote:Thanks, rainbowgardener. I started composting back in September - if I want to plant vegetable seedlings in mid-May, with expectation of last frost in mid-April, when is the best time to integrate the compost (with any new garden soil) into the beds? Close to planting time?
Once you have a rich organic soil, then you just keep adding compost and mulch to make up for what is depleted and it is a steady stream. But starting out, you have to think long term and short term.
Organic material helps build up the soil web by feeding the soil microbes. It is actually the microbes in the soil that break down the organic material and converts the organic compounds into nutrients that the plants can absorb. This takes time and the larger the microbial community gets, the richer the soil becomes. It will take about 3 years for an organic garden starting from scratch to become as productive as a conventional garden.
If you add any sulfur or lime to alter pH, that is also ultimately converted by the soil bacteria, that is why it will take approximately 6 months for soil pH to show a real difference. The fast way would be to add acidic or alkaline organic materials.
Carbon is the food of the microbes, and synthetic fertilizers alone do not feed the soil web or improve soil tilth and water holding capacity.
Whether you use synthetic or organic fertilizer they both contain salts, which is not a good thing, and they both can alter
pH depending on their composition. And you can over use both which can affect the growth of the plants as well as harm the soil and the environment in the long run. To much of any nutrient can affect the ability to absorb another. Nutrients become more or less available depending on pH and the presence of other nutrients. Some plants absorb more of one nutrient than another. And most people, including me have a habit of planting the same thing every year. That is why it is a good idea to get an initial soil test and to retest every few years to make sure everything stays balanced. Add only the fertilizer that you need and avoid nutrients that you don't. If you can rotate plants that use different nutrients like high N corn with low N beans or a cabbage scavenger crop.
Even if you choose to use synthetic fertilizer it is still a good idea to build the soil by adding organic materials like compost to improve soil tilth and water holding capacity and support the soil microbia.
If you add any sulfur or lime to alter pH, that is also ultimately converted by the soil bacteria, that is why it will take approximately 6 months for soil pH to show a real difference. The fast way would be to add acidic or alkaline organic materials.
Carbon is the food of the microbes, and synthetic fertilizers alone do not feed the soil web or improve soil tilth and water holding capacity.
Whether you use synthetic or organic fertilizer they both contain salts, which is not a good thing, and they both can alter
pH depending on their composition. And you can over use both which can affect the growth of the plants as well as harm the soil and the environment in the long run. To much of any nutrient can affect the ability to absorb another. Nutrients become more or less available depending on pH and the presence of other nutrients. Some plants absorb more of one nutrient than another. And most people, including me have a habit of planting the same thing every year. That is why it is a good idea to get an initial soil test and to retest every few years to make sure everything stays balanced. Add only the fertilizer that you need and avoid nutrients that you don't. If you can rotate plants that use different nutrients like high N corn with low N beans or a cabbage scavenger crop.
Even if you choose to use synthetic fertilizer it is still a good idea to build the soil by adding organic materials like compost to improve soil tilth and water holding capacity and support the soil microbia.
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jal_ut
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 7447
- Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:20 pm
- Location: Northern Utah Zone 5
Quote: "I have several raised beds in 4'x4' cedar boxes and resting on landscape fabric."
OK help me see this, what is the landscape fabric sitting on. In other words what are your boxes on? If they are outdoors sitting on the ground, I would not use any fabric or bottom in the box, but let the roots go down into the existing ground.
Do a little research on root development and you will see the roots of our garden plants go quite deep when grown in the ground.
https://soilandhealth.org/wp-content/upl ... 37toc.html
OK help me see this, what is the landscape fabric sitting on. In other words what are your boxes on? If they are outdoors sitting on the ground, I would not use any fabric or bottom in the box, but let the roots go down into the existing ground.
Do a little research on root development and you will see the roots of our garden plants go quite deep when grown in the ground.
https://soilandhealth.org/wp-content/upl ... 37toc.html