I have been researching fertilizer for a few weeks for a lecture and came across some interesting things
1. Most of us over fertilize.
2. The numbers on the package represent the total amount of the element, but not what is actually available
3. Complete fertilizers with the lowest NPK work just as well as ones with high NPK and are cheaper
4. Other factors influence how much fertilizer is needed and how fast it becomes available to plants. I.e. soil type, pH, water quality, placement, temperature, CEC, amount of organic matter in soil, form of the fertilizer, presence of other minerals in the soil that will either enhance or antagonize the uptake of each other.
5. Organic fertilizers are inconsistent and analysis will vary from batch to batch. Organic fertilizers help the soil microbes mainly because they have a lot of organic filler. More lbs of organic fertilizer is required to get the same NPK as inorganic fertilizers.
6. Both organic and inorganic fertilizers have undesirable salts, and both if over applied can harm the environment.
7. Plants do not need a lot of fertilizers. They do not show deficiencies even with the use of organic low NPK numbers but there is a significant difference in size.
8. Excess nutrients don't usually show up in plants. When they do, they show up as a deficiency of another element like iron deficiency in soils that are alkaline or high in calcium. Excess nutrients usually show up as pollutants when they enter the waterways and lakes resulting in algae blooms in lakes and salmonella and ecoli tainted crops downstream from animal farms.
In my case the soil here has a very low cec and absorbs phosphorus like a sponge. For years 10-30-10 was the most recommended fertilizer because P was the most limiting factor. About 8 years ago I started doing soil tests and found my soil was in the extreme or high range for the major elements. It is also very high in calcium, magnesium and aluminum. I have added more organic matter, twice what I used to add, and the only fertilizer the garden soil gets is sulfate of ammonia and in much smaller quantities than before. I do use citrus food in pots because of the low NPK ,6-4-6 and it contains micros. But I am rethinking that because my native soil is rarely deficient in micros and I may switch to a low NPK fertilizer without micros and only add micros if I see deficiency.
I did try organic, but I did not like the results and I do not like to use animal by products in the garden. My garden is very productive and probably still getting too much nitrogen judging by the size of my 3 ft kale and won bok leaves. The plots with pH 7.4 and 7.8 tie up nitrogen more so they have shorter plants even though they get more nitrogen but I get better beets, daikon, and carrots from the plot with pH 7.4. I get better tomatoes in pots and terrible tomatoes in the alkaline plots . The plot with pH 7.8 is mostly organic, although I have given up trying to get enough organic nitrogen in. Green manures and innoculation has not been able to improve nitrogen fixation in light of a poorly drained soil, so I am using sulfate of ammonia there now too with improvement in the size of the plants. The compost that is available has a pH of 7.8 so it is not helping the alkaline plots. None of the plots have needed much pest control except for ant bait but those are in containers. I have started using roundup because, the weeds are just too much to keep up with and they are too persistent.
I tend to under fertilize, and am sparing when I do remember.
I don't do soil tests, and wing it. Each large container is slightly different by mix, what's added each year, and plants. This holds true for any in ground, slightly raised beds.
Seedlings and babies. These started in peat pellets, and watered about 7 -10 days with Johns Recipe. It's low, 3 -1.5 -2 and has other micro nutrients in it. (I seem to be the only one around here using it, and then suggested to doctor it. Whatever. Yes, a bit of snark)
Now with longer and warmer days, trying to use Johns about 7 -10 days on the 4" and qt pots. They are for the most part in MG potting mix. Plants a mix of herbs, annuals and perennials.
Bump up to herbs and plants in large containers. Mostly herbs for harvesting, any spinach I have for me and any other plants out there, try to remember to fish 10 days or so. The Alaska fish is 5 -1 -1. BTW, is is mostly deodorized. I fished everything, seedlings and 4" pots in the mini greenhouse (5 x 6) the other day, and no bad smells.
For flowers both annual and perennial growing in large containers, try to remember to work in some plant-tone (Epsoma), about 2 x season. It helps with developing the soil webs
For a boost for flowering plants, work in some osmacote. This reminds me there are some coneflower and other flowers that overwintered. I could freshen and work in some osmacote for a little nudge before putting them out for market.
On the natural side, for the large containers, a few handfuls of enriched dirt compost are worked in about 2 x season. There's also worms in there tunneling, aerating and pooping.
I have more than enough comfrey, and need to remember to pick a few leaves, shred and work into the soil when freshening pots. The leaves can also be dried and used crumbled. Note to self -start picking some leaves, lay out in plastic flat tray out of rain and air dry.
Don't know if it helps with your project, but just how I roll!
I don't do soil tests, and wing it. Each large container is slightly different by mix, what's added each year, and plants. This holds true for any in ground, slightly raised beds.
Seedlings and babies. These started in peat pellets, and watered about 7 -10 days with Johns Recipe. It's low, 3 -1.5 -2 and has other micro nutrients in it. (I seem to be the only one around here using it, and then suggested to doctor it. Whatever. Yes, a bit of snark)
Now with longer and warmer days, trying to use Johns about 7 -10 days on the 4" and qt pots. They are for the most part in MG potting mix. Plants a mix of herbs, annuals and perennials.
Bump up to herbs and plants in large containers. Mostly herbs for harvesting, any spinach I have for me and any other plants out there, try to remember to fish 10 days or so. The Alaska fish is 5 -1 -1. BTW, is is mostly deodorized. I fished everything, seedlings and 4" pots in the mini greenhouse (5 x 6) the other day, and no bad smells.
For flowers both annual and perennial growing in large containers, try to remember to work in some plant-tone (Epsoma), about 2 x season. It helps with developing the soil webs
For a boost for flowering plants, work in some osmacote. This reminds me there are some coneflower and other flowers that overwintered. I could freshen and work in some osmacote for a little nudge before putting them out for market.
On the natural side, for the large containers, a few handfuls of enriched dirt compost are worked in about 2 x season. There's also worms in there tunneling, aerating and pooping.
I have more than enough comfrey, and need to remember to pick a few leaves, shred and work into the soil when freshening pots. The leaves can also be dried and used crumbled. Note to self -start picking some leaves, lay out in plastic flat tray out of rain and air dry.
Don't know if it helps with your project, but just how I roll!
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applestar
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Imafan, I intend to read and comment. I just haven't been in the right mind-set --- brain fogged all day yesterday had to take a nap even. This morning, out digging and burying half finished compost and moving dirt and soil all morning trying to fill up the raised beds. Got hit by wind-drift chems from neighbors lawn service. Now I need to veg -- my brain is non-functioning due to pain signals coming from all over.... 
Nitrogen is usually the most limiting since it is highly volatile and my soil test does not bother to even report it because no matter what it is, it is always changing. What is not taken up by the soil organisms and, can be lost to volatization or demineralization by other soil microbes. That it why soil tests recommended dividing the total nitrogen requirement by 2-3 applications and even if everything else is high, there is always a recommendation for nitrogen.
I used to use 10-30-10 and 10-20-20 which was the most recommended fertilizer here. I may even have some left somewhere. I haven't used it in years and it is probably a rock by now.
With the addition of more organic matter to the soil, I am seeing a decreasing need for nitrogen. I use about a quarter of what I used to use and I could probably decrease it more in the acidic garden. The alkaline gardens use more nitrogen but the plants there do not get as big and I do have better root crops there. Those plots have even more organics added to them, the community garden plot has been the only one to actually show a significant drop in phosphorus. The other plot is the herb garden which has drainage issues that have made it difficult to grow organically. I really did try with that plot by adding lots of compost and I even planted green manures and innoculated succesive cowpeas but the nitrogen nodules always dropped immediately. The only thing normal sized there is fennel. The rest of the plants are all smaller than I know they can or should be. Even peanuts make small peanuts. The compost was tested it has pH 7.8.
A tomato grown in my acidic garden or in the tomato pots with citrus food 6-4-6 plus micros are very productive and normal sized at around 7-8 ft tall. The tomatoes that survive in the alkaline plots even with added nitrogen do produce fruit but rarely get longer than 3 ft (indeterminates).
I did find that there was no significant difference in size between plants grown with 10-30-10 or with 6-4-6 . Even the herb plot using just organic inputs (compost) grew plants that did not show any macro deficiencies except for size. Size was limited by the nitrogen available to the plants. I did add steer manure and meat meal but probably not enough. In the herb plot size is also limited by the poor drainage. Once the roots go below 10 inches, phythoptora kills the plants. It is why the herb garden has very few perennials.
I used to use 10-30-10 and 10-20-20 which was the most recommended fertilizer here. I may even have some left somewhere. I haven't used it in years and it is probably a rock by now.
With the addition of more organic matter to the soil, I am seeing a decreasing need for nitrogen. I use about a quarter of what I used to use and I could probably decrease it more in the acidic garden. The alkaline gardens use more nitrogen but the plants there do not get as big and I do have better root crops there. Those plots have even more organics added to them, the community garden plot has been the only one to actually show a significant drop in phosphorus. The other plot is the herb garden which has drainage issues that have made it difficult to grow organically. I really did try with that plot by adding lots of compost and I even planted green manures and innoculated succesive cowpeas but the nitrogen nodules always dropped immediately. The only thing normal sized there is fennel. The rest of the plants are all smaller than I know they can or should be. Even peanuts make small peanuts. The compost was tested it has pH 7.8.
A tomato grown in my acidic garden or in the tomato pots with citrus food 6-4-6 plus micros are very productive and normal sized at around 7-8 ft tall. The tomatoes that survive in the alkaline plots even with added nitrogen do produce fruit but rarely get longer than 3 ft (indeterminates).
I did find that there was no significant difference in size between plants grown with 10-30-10 or with 6-4-6 . Even the herb plot using just organic inputs (compost) grew plants that did not show any macro deficiencies except for size. Size was limited by the nitrogen available to the plants. I did add steer manure and meat meal but probably not enough. In the herb plot size is also limited by the poor drainage. Once the roots go below 10 inches, phythoptora kills the plants. It is why the herb garden has very few perennials.
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HoneyBerry
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I feel confused about fertilizer products. And I don't know which brands to trust. So I mainly use certified organic compost that I buy in bulk at the nursery. Cedar Grove Compost is the brand that I buy. It is dark brown and rich looking. I am lucky in that I have soft riverbed soil. I mix in the C.G. compost to make perfect garden soil. I sparingly use 'hendrikus' brand products on special plants such as my berries. They have a variety of products. I currently am using 'HuMagic' all natural organic soil builder, which is 100% Organic Humate from Peat Humus. Hendrikus has some volcanic soil amendment products that I especially like. Yeah, expensive, but I love the products. And I also make my own compost. I am very picky about what I put on my compost pike, so it is as good as certified organic.
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HoneyBerry
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Thank you, imafan, for the good info. PH is something that I need to learn more about. I live in a river valley not far from the base of a volcanic mountain. Like Hawaii, he soil was made by that mountain. It is soft and rich, great for gardens. I have never had the soil tested. I do have a PH meter that I bought at the hardware store.
It seems like a crime, that the developers are building so many housing and apartment complexes on top of this rich dirt. Someday we will look back, when there is a food shortage, and say "what were we thinking?".
It seems like a crime, that the developers are building so many housing and apartment complexes on top of this rich dirt. Someday we will look back, when there is a food shortage, and say "what were we thinking?".
I just wanna add that I never care about the N-P-K since it sure is some basic compounds needed for plant growth, but its just as good as explaining what humans need by only 3 elements. Its stoneage technology behind the N-P-K system, and it does make plants grow, but they lack alot of vital nutrients, for healthy plants and humans.
This growing system has lead to that carrots for example here in Sweden has roughly half the amount of nutrients today compared to the -40ies (when they started with this N-P-K synthethic fertilizers). So now you need to eat two carrots to get the same amount of nutrients. You need to eat more and thus making the body more tired, since digestion is one of the most energy demanding body process. This is a big world problem in my opinion.
They are teaching us false logics.
This growing system has lead to that carrots for example here in Sweden has roughly half the amount of nutrients today compared to the -40ies (when they started with this N-P-K synthethic fertilizers). So now you need to eat two carrots to get the same amount of nutrients. You need to eat more and thus making the body more tired, since digestion is one of the most energy demanding body process. This is a big world problem in my opinion.
They are teaching us false logics.
It is apparrently true that food today has less nutrients in them but that has been linked to soil depletion of nutrients and breeding of crops to be bigger, prettier and more disease resistant but not necessarily to be more nutritious.
You will only get what you put in and the plants will only get what is available to them. Excess nutrients in the soil cause environmental damage that is also a fact. How do you manage your crops and nutrients to maintain balance in the soil so that nutrients that are lost are replaced but not over done to the point where the soil becomes very unbalanced so it can't grow anything well or so high in nutrients that it leaches into the water and causes environmental damage. How do you know if your soil is high or low if you don't do soil tests? It is easier to overdo fertilizers with synthetics but organics have caused contamination and illness as well when they have been poorly managed. It is usually easy to tell if a crop has a deficiency but very few symptoms occur with nutrient excesses until they are very high. The excesses usually occur as a deficiency of something else. Like a high pH or high phosphorus making micronutrients less available = chlorosis, or adding too much compost or partially decomposed matter to the soil that it raises pH and makes nitrogen less available to plants leading to yellow older leaves ( a sign of nitrogen deficiecy). Many times the problems that become noticeable like stunting, yellow leaves, chlorosis are deficiencies of some elements that are caused by the excesses of others or pH that is out of range.
Nutrient imbalances can be magnified especially with monocropping and planting the same crop over and over again in the same place. Home gardeners are just as guilty as the agrobusinesses of planting in the same place over and over again. Businesses do actually test their soil and literally add tons of fertilizer per acre to generate higher yields. Getting maximum yields does not always mean they are using the optimum fertilizer or crop rotation to keep the soil productive in the long term or that they are not using more fertilizer than is necessary to get that yield and not hurt the environment down the road.
Gardening organically does feed the soil and the soil community, but every plant that is put in takes out nutrients when it is harvested and eaten. Inputs have to be made to make up for what is taken out and those inputs come from somewhere else that is poorer for it. It seems that organic gardeners do add a lot of compost, and organic fertilzer, but the amounts are less precise and it is hard to get precise measurements because the nutrient value of organic inputs vary by source and batch. It is harder to get and idea of the quantities that are added and the approx nutrient values of what is being added. Do any of the organic gardeners test their soil regularly? How do you what and how much to add or if you have under or over applied?
You will only get what you put in and the plants will only get what is available to them. Excess nutrients in the soil cause environmental damage that is also a fact. How do you manage your crops and nutrients to maintain balance in the soil so that nutrients that are lost are replaced but not over done to the point where the soil becomes very unbalanced so it can't grow anything well or so high in nutrients that it leaches into the water and causes environmental damage. How do you know if your soil is high or low if you don't do soil tests? It is easier to overdo fertilizers with synthetics but organics have caused contamination and illness as well when they have been poorly managed. It is usually easy to tell if a crop has a deficiency but very few symptoms occur with nutrient excesses until they are very high. The excesses usually occur as a deficiency of something else. Like a high pH or high phosphorus making micronutrients less available = chlorosis, or adding too much compost or partially decomposed matter to the soil that it raises pH and makes nitrogen less available to plants leading to yellow older leaves ( a sign of nitrogen deficiecy). Many times the problems that become noticeable like stunting, yellow leaves, chlorosis are deficiencies of some elements that are caused by the excesses of others or pH that is out of range.
Nutrient imbalances can be magnified especially with monocropping and planting the same crop over and over again in the same place. Home gardeners are just as guilty as the agrobusinesses of planting in the same place over and over again. Businesses do actually test their soil and literally add tons of fertilizer per acre to generate higher yields. Getting maximum yields does not always mean they are using the optimum fertilizer or crop rotation to keep the soil productive in the long term or that they are not using more fertilizer than is necessary to get that yield and not hurt the environment down the road.
Gardening organically does feed the soil and the soil community, but every plant that is put in takes out nutrients when it is harvested and eaten. Inputs have to be made to make up for what is taken out and those inputs come from somewhere else that is poorer for it. It seems that organic gardeners do add a lot of compost, and organic fertilzer, but the amounts are less precise and it is hard to get precise measurements because the nutrient value of organic inputs vary by source and batch. It is harder to get and idea of the quantities that are added and the approx nutrient values of what is being added. Do any of the organic gardeners test their soil regularly? How do you what and how much to add or if you have under or over applied?
Soil depletion is also proven to be caused by bare soils and rain flushing off minerals and micronutrients having them end up in the ocean, were it makes trouble, toghether with adding only N-P-K your bound to have soil with nutrient deficiency, don't need tests for that. So mulching just like mother nature is the best way to prevent soil depletion because it prevents nutrients to be flushed of and or oxidiced. My take is the more you mimic natural systems the better results you will have.
No I never test my soil, I never felt I needed to do it, neither did my ancestors that grew (provenly) alot better quality food than us (generally in modern days) without soil testing. Nature never does it either and she works better than most any garden I have seen. Also with 1000$ a month and 3 mouths to feed its not sustainable for me in anyway doing soiltests for half my salary, but thats my last concern about it still.
Also in nature nothing really is perfect, only we humans strive to make things perfect, like nutrients levels and the funniest part is that we don't have 100% full understanding of them and their interrelation with eachother etc etc.
No I never test my soil, I never felt I needed to do it, neither did my ancestors that grew (provenly) alot better quality food than us (generally in modern days) without soil testing. Nature never does it either and she works better than most any garden I have seen. Also with 1000$ a month and 3 mouths to feed its not sustainable for me in anyway doing soiltests for half my salary, but thats my last concern about it still.
Also in nature nothing really is perfect, only we humans strive to make things perfect, like nutrients levels and the funniest part is that we don't have 100% full understanding of them and their interrelation with eachother etc etc.
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rainbowgardener
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I don't test my soil either, except I do have a pH meter. I think that is the most important thing to know, since many plants have a very specific pH range they will thrive in.
Otherwise I just try to have very rich organic soil full of microbial life, earthworms etc, to get the nutrients in usable form for the plants. If all the needed nutrients (which is a lot more than NPK) are there, the plants can just take what they need.
Usually I don't use any fertilizer just compost and mulch. But I moved last fall and now am gardening in a place that has not been gardened before, had nothing but very neglected lawn there. I built raised beds and have filled them with a good rich mixture of aged manure and mixed composts. But as I have been telling people here "manure and compost are not fertilizer." The nutrients in them are very slow release. Some of my plants were starting to show some yellowing and the corn was a lighter green than I think it should be. So today I watered everything with fish emulsion in the water. It is 5-2-2 and has other micronutrients and is quicker acting. Hopefully will tide things over until the nutrients in the planting mix become more available. I will probably do it again once or twice more, every week or two, until everything perks up. Using fish emulsion diluted as directed, it is hard to overdo.
I intend to also brew up some aerated compost tea soon. It adds some of the nutrients of compost in a more available form and adds to the microbial life of the soil, which helps make the soil nutrients more available.
And I am now working on getting my beds mulched. Sometime in summer I will turn my compost pile and get down to the finished compost and give things a side dressing of that.
That's the extent of my fertilizing.
Otherwise I just try to have very rich organic soil full of microbial life, earthworms etc, to get the nutrients in usable form for the plants. If all the needed nutrients (which is a lot more than NPK) are there, the plants can just take what they need.
Usually I don't use any fertilizer just compost and mulch. But I moved last fall and now am gardening in a place that has not been gardened before, had nothing but very neglected lawn there. I built raised beds and have filled them with a good rich mixture of aged manure and mixed composts. But as I have been telling people here "manure and compost are not fertilizer." The nutrients in them are very slow release. Some of my plants were starting to show some yellowing and the corn was a lighter green than I think it should be. So today I watered everything with fish emulsion in the water. It is 5-2-2 and has other micronutrients and is quicker acting. Hopefully will tide things over until the nutrients in the planting mix become more available. I will probably do it again once or twice more, every week or two, until everything perks up. Using fish emulsion diluted as directed, it is hard to overdo.
I intend to also brew up some aerated compost tea soon. It adds some of the nutrients of compost in a more available form and adds to the microbial life of the soil, which helps make the soil nutrients more available.
And I am now working on getting my beds mulched. Sometime in summer I will turn my compost pile and get down to the finished compost and give things a side dressing of that.
That's the extent of my fertilizing.
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applestar
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So, I've been thinking about this.
I'm not consistent. That's the problem. It's not so simple to say "I do THIS" when actually I do this and that and the other thing....
When I buy them, I buy Dr. Earth or Espoma that are sold as organic. I've decided to accept that I have better results with bought fertilizers when it comes to container plants. So I get Espoma citrus or Dr. Earth fruits, Espoma tomato-tone, Dr. Earth 4-4-4 all purpose, and Dr. Earth vegetable. I add the fertilizer when I blend the potting mix for new planting or uppotting/repotting. I've been putting earthworms in the container for quite a while now, too.
While they are inside, they get watered with UCG -used coffee grounds- water, left over beverages, rice rinsing water....diluted AACT. I have a sort of "sangria" going right now -- banana peel and squeezed out lemon half in a quart container, to which I add UCG and water, soak overnight, and water the subtropicals.
Once they go outside, I water them with water from buckets in which I keep goldfish for mosquito control. Most of them sit directly on the ground so earthworms freely migrate in and out.
But I try not to bring in too much stuff from the outside. So for the garden, I generally go with reconstituted alfalfa pellets, rock phosphate, green sand, and dolomitic lime, plus my own compost and AACT, vermicomposter leacheate, and drowned weeds. I might supplement with purchased fertilizer early in the season while the compost piles are still warming up and coming out of winter hibernation.
It's true I haven't used any chemicals for a long time and my garden's soil foodweb is pretty healthy. This time of the year with the soil slowly warming up, the ground is full of earthworms practically everywhere I dig. I actually feel like something is WRONG if poking a hole in the ground doesn't cause at least one worm to come hurrying out from the hole or from somewhere near by. All my garden beds look lumpy from night crawler mounds. (This is particularly noticeable in the morning after I had worked on a bed and raked it smooth the day before) Washing up after gardening takes serious scrubbing because my hands get mucky, not just dirty. The stuff clings and stains the skin -- and its from the earthworm castings.
I also mentioned that I "mulch" the paths with sticks and hard to decompose garden waste like corn stalks, undiseased tomato vines, squash vines, etc. as well as weeds that can be eliminated by trampling into the mud. So the paths, which are scraped down to the subsoil and act as water/moisture sequestering swales and are basically areas between the beds and raised mounded rows end up full of earthworms doing their thing. I do also try to grow legumes or have a compost pile occupying the beds where I intend to grow heavy feeders next.
So I don't really feel like I NEED to fertilize all that much. I only try to boost the N for corn and sometimes the melons. For this, I've used high concentration AACT soil drench, fish emulsion and fish fertilizer as well as alfalfa pellets. Veg or 4-4-4 fertilizer if I have that.
Oh, to answer the question, I've never had my soil tested. Part of the reason is that I've been noticing very specific microclimates in the various garden beds. This includes consistency, texture, moisture level, sun exposure, and other external forces influencing the bed. I've been working on identifying the kind of plants that grow best in each of these areas, and implementing crop rotation within those limits. So it doesn't make sense to combine the various samples for a single test, and it doesn't make $ sense to me to have all of the samples individually tested.
I'm not consistent. That's the problem. It's not so simple to say "I do THIS" when actually I do this and that and the other thing....
When I buy them, I buy Dr. Earth or Espoma that are sold as organic. I've decided to accept that I have better results with bought fertilizers when it comes to container plants. So I get Espoma citrus or Dr. Earth fruits, Espoma tomato-tone, Dr. Earth 4-4-4 all purpose, and Dr. Earth vegetable. I add the fertilizer when I blend the potting mix for new planting or uppotting/repotting. I've been putting earthworms in the container for quite a while now, too.
While they are inside, they get watered with UCG -used coffee grounds- water, left over beverages, rice rinsing water....diluted AACT. I have a sort of "sangria" going right now -- banana peel and squeezed out lemon half in a quart container, to which I add UCG and water, soak overnight, and water the subtropicals.
Once they go outside, I water them with water from buckets in which I keep goldfish for mosquito control. Most of them sit directly on the ground so earthworms freely migrate in and out.
But I try not to bring in too much stuff from the outside. So for the garden, I generally go with reconstituted alfalfa pellets, rock phosphate, green sand, and dolomitic lime, plus my own compost and AACT, vermicomposter leacheate, and drowned weeds. I might supplement with purchased fertilizer early in the season while the compost piles are still warming up and coming out of winter hibernation.
It's true I haven't used any chemicals for a long time and my garden's soil foodweb is pretty healthy. This time of the year with the soil slowly warming up, the ground is full of earthworms practically everywhere I dig. I actually feel like something is WRONG if poking a hole in the ground doesn't cause at least one worm to come hurrying out from the hole or from somewhere near by. All my garden beds look lumpy from night crawler mounds. (This is particularly noticeable in the morning after I had worked on a bed and raked it smooth the day before) Washing up after gardening takes serious scrubbing because my hands get mucky, not just dirty. The stuff clings and stains the skin -- and its from the earthworm castings.
I also mentioned that I "mulch" the paths with sticks and hard to decompose garden waste like corn stalks, undiseased tomato vines, squash vines, etc. as well as weeds that can be eliminated by trampling into the mud. So the paths, which are scraped down to the subsoil and act as water/moisture sequestering swales and are basically areas between the beds and raised mounded rows end up full of earthworms doing their thing. I do also try to grow legumes or have a compost pile occupying the beds where I intend to grow heavy feeders next.
So I don't really feel like I NEED to fertilize all that much. I only try to boost the N for corn and sometimes the melons. For this, I've used high concentration AACT soil drench, fish emulsion and fish fertilizer as well as alfalfa pellets. Veg or 4-4-4 fertilizer if I have that.
Oh, to answer the question, I've never had my soil tested. Part of the reason is that I've been noticing very specific microclimates in the various garden beds. This includes consistency, texture, moisture level, sun exposure, and other external forces influencing the bed. I've been working on identifying the kind of plants that grow best in each of these areas, and implementing crop rotation within those limits. So it doesn't make sense to combine the various samples for a single test, and it doesn't make $ sense to me to have all of the samples individually tested.
Thank you all for your perspectives. I really did not learn about soil testing before 8 years ago and then I volunteered at the Urban Garden Center and entered the master gardener program. Frankly, I had been gardening for a long time so there wasn't that much new that I learned. I did however learn a few things about plant anatomy that I did not know and about soil testing.
Although the pubs recommended soil testing every year. I did soil tests 4 times and found they were about the same because of the types of compost and fertilizers that are available and because of the types of soils we have. I fertilized a lot before like miracle grow the whole yard every two weeks until we had 42 days and nights of rain and I could not do that, everything was already too wet. I had huge orchids that were so heavy they broke the tree branches and the hanging wires and grew all around the basket. They bloomed well, but they bloomed even better the next year with less fertilizer. I did pay for that though because with no additional fertilizer there were fewer growths and less flowers the following year. Now, I have gone the other way and have neglected my orchids so much they are actually shrinking and though they still bloom, they are dying off. Only the oncidiums I repotted 2 years ago when they were looking really bad have actually sprung back and I have only fertilized them with osmocote 3 times in the last two years. It is time for them to be repotted again this year and I will probably double my collection if I keep them all. They are starting to bloom now. They only bloom once a year.
In my garden it was a similar thing, I used miracle grow on everything and everything grew well and I got huge plants except for root crops, I just got huge tops and no roots. I had giant greens and 7 ft corn and the tomatoes were 8 plus feet tall with more tomatoes than I could use. I didn't test then because most things worked fine and showed no deficiencies.
I could grow root crops at the community garden because we only put in compost, chicken manure and some citrus food for the citrus trees.
The herb garden was a master gardener project and it was amended with compost and chicken manure and then it was tested. As it turned out the chicken manure was a bad choice because the pH was already 7.8. There was also a drainage issue that the master gardeners knew about but chose to ignore. It is still a problem to this day.
I had my soil tested at home and at the community garden. My house pH is 6.4 so it is perfect, but the oversized plants told me I had too much nitrogen. The phosphorus was off the scale at 2051 and the potassium and calcium was also in the high range. I have not added anything excpept compost and a very small amount (by comparison) of sulfate of ammonia since. I used to lime every two years until I started having problems getting okra to grow. It was not a problem until about the 4th liming. Then, only cabbages would grow in that spot. So, I stopped. The calcium is so high it doesn't need it. I just used to lime and not test if it needed it, because I was told that Hawaii soils needed high phosphorus for the oxisol we have and a lot of lime. While the phosphorus is extreme even for Hawaii soils, most of it is not available . So I have been adding more compost than ever to make it more available.
The community garden plot is actually in a high rainfall area, but because the soil there has been amended with compost, partially decomposted mulch, and chicken manure for years without soil testing, the pH was 7.4. I have since stopped using chicken manure. I do use steer manure and I still put in compost ( this compost has a pH 7.8. ) This plot is better for beets, daikon and carrots since the root crops like a more alkaline soil with less nitrogen. I added peat moss the last time along with the compost to bring the pH down a little more. it also gets sulfate of ammonia but a little heavier dose than my house. Tomatoes have never done well in this garden and they continue to be very small like a 3 ft vine. They do produce some tomatoes. It is better than before. The tomatoes would get to be about 3 ft and maybe produce something and then die. This garden it at 827 ft elevation so I grow lettuce and Asian greens here. In summer the lettuce will grow under the satsuma mandarins and chayote grows wild.
I know that the community garden is limited by nitrogen. It is also the only garden that showed a significant drop in phosphorus from 450 to 250 ppm. The soil test indicate I needed 37 ppm for general garden vegetables. I am good for a few more years I think. It shows up in the very short tomato vines and the prolific but normal sized leaves of the greens. Also in the fact that I actually get beets, carrots and 3 ft. long daikon.
The herb garden is also limited by nitrogen which shows in the plants that don't even reach the expected heights from the seed packets. Nothing is especially yellowing, they just are short. The only thing normal sized there is fennel. The water logged soil has phythoptora so nothing deep rooted survives for long which also limits the plant heights. Most of the plants are annuals with roots less than 10 inches deep. I had to put some plants in large planters because they could not tolerate the soggy soil and it is so alkaline with pH 7.8 that plants that prefer more acidic conditions will simply not grow.
My house, seems to be governed more by excess than by limits. The pH is fine for most plants and all of the essential elements are present in sufficient quantity that there are no signs of chlorosis or any nutrient deficency. With a phosphorus off the scale and high and extemely high levels of other elements there are no outward signs of excess except with the poorer root formation of the root crops. Even that has gotten better now that I have dialed back the nitrogen a lot. I probably need to dial it back some more. I did try not adding nitrogen for the second set of corn but they got 2 ft shorter in the second crop so it is being used up. I am also now rotating the high user corn with cabbage scavengers that will scavenge the leftover nitrogen and take out some of the calcium at the same time.
When I tried to go all organic, I could not get enough nitrogen in so I got very short plants all around. They were healthy just shorter and less productive. The nitrogen definitely was a limiting factor there and blood meal was the closest thing I could get to a pure nitrogen source. It just did not have most of the nitrogen available at the right time. Soil tests don't help me here because I would have to ask specifically for nitrogen and I would only get total nitrogen not available nitrogen. I can tell that just by looking at the plants. I have sent tissue samples and they have all been adequate even the small plants had adequate levels of nitrogen.
I am trying to figure out how to get the plants bigger with the least amount of fertilizer so that it is efficient, enough without being in excess. How much organic fertilizer do you add? How many bags of steer manure per 100 sq feet. How many pounds of organic fertilizer per 100 sq ft and do you dilute the fish fertilizer more than on the label? The one thing I did learn for my situation is that I can only add up to 20% compost, roughly 3 inches to my soil at one time so as not to make things more alkaline than they already are. Adding compost to my acidic garden in that quantity has not changed it much, but adding more caused issues with some of the plants that did not like the higher pH and my clay soil holds a lot of water and the compost kept everything too soggy especially when it rains. Plants would turn yellow and rot. I am looking for alternatives to the sulfate of ammonia for slower release but in adequate amounts to get the size I want. I would have to add sulfur to keep the pH from going any higher in the alkaline plots.
I have been using a lot less sulfate of ammonia with the addition of more compost, and the recommendation that I should divide the feedings and I only needed $0.30 worth, so I think the soil web is still building up. Too bad, I could use a test for that.
Although the pubs recommended soil testing every year. I did soil tests 4 times and found they were about the same because of the types of compost and fertilizers that are available and because of the types of soils we have. I fertilized a lot before like miracle grow the whole yard every two weeks until we had 42 days and nights of rain and I could not do that, everything was already too wet. I had huge orchids that were so heavy they broke the tree branches and the hanging wires and grew all around the basket. They bloomed well, but they bloomed even better the next year with less fertilizer. I did pay for that though because with no additional fertilizer there were fewer growths and less flowers the following year. Now, I have gone the other way and have neglected my orchids so much they are actually shrinking and though they still bloom, they are dying off. Only the oncidiums I repotted 2 years ago when they were looking really bad have actually sprung back and I have only fertilized them with osmocote 3 times in the last two years. It is time for them to be repotted again this year and I will probably double my collection if I keep them all. They are starting to bloom now. They only bloom once a year.
In my garden it was a similar thing, I used miracle grow on everything and everything grew well and I got huge plants except for root crops, I just got huge tops and no roots. I had giant greens and 7 ft corn and the tomatoes were 8 plus feet tall with more tomatoes than I could use. I didn't test then because most things worked fine and showed no deficiencies.
I could grow root crops at the community garden because we only put in compost, chicken manure and some citrus food for the citrus trees.
The herb garden was a master gardener project and it was amended with compost and chicken manure and then it was tested. As it turned out the chicken manure was a bad choice because the pH was already 7.8. There was also a drainage issue that the master gardeners knew about but chose to ignore. It is still a problem to this day.
I had my soil tested at home and at the community garden. My house pH is 6.4 so it is perfect, but the oversized plants told me I had too much nitrogen. The phosphorus was off the scale at 2051 and the potassium and calcium was also in the high range. I have not added anything excpept compost and a very small amount (by comparison) of sulfate of ammonia since. I used to lime every two years until I started having problems getting okra to grow. It was not a problem until about the 4th liming. Then, only cabbages would grow in that spot. So, I stopped. The calcium is so high it doesn't need it. I just used to lime and not test if it needed it, because I was told that Hawaii soils needed high phosphorus for the oxisol we have and a lot of lime. While the phosphorus is extreme even for Hawaii soils, most of it is not available . So I have been adding more compost than ever to make it more available.
The community garden plot is actually in a high rainfall area, but because the soil there has been amended with compost, partially decomposted mulch, and chicken manure for years without soil testing, the pH was 7.4. I have since stopped using chicken manure. I do use steer manure and I still put in compost ( this compost has a pH 7.8. ) This plot is better for beets, daikon and carrots since the root crops like a more alkaline soil with less nitrogen. I added peat moss the last time along with the compost to bring the pH down a little more. it also gets sulfate of ammonia but a little heavier dose than my house. Tomatoes have never done well in this garden and they continue to be very small like a 3 ft vine. They do produce some tomatoes. It is better than before. The tomatoes would get to be about 3 ft and maybe produce something and then die. This garden it at 827 ft elevation so I grow lettuce and Asian greens here. In summer the lettuce will grow under the satsuma mandarins and chayote grows wild.
I know that the community garden is limited by nitrogen. It is also the only garden that showed a significant drop in phosphorus from 450 to 250 ppm. The soil test indicate I needed 37 ppm for general garden vegetables. I am good for a few more years I think. It shows up in the very short tomato vines and the prolific but normal sized leaves of the greens. Also in the fact that I actually get beets, carrots and 3 ft. long daikon.
The herb garden is also limited by nitrogen which shows in the plants that don't even reach the expected heights from the seed packets. Nothing is especially yellowing, they just are short. The only thing normal sized there is fennel. The water logged soil has phythoptora so nothing deep rooted survives for long which also limits the plant heights. Most of the plants are annuals with roots less than 10 inches deep. I had to put some plants in large planters because they could not tolerate the soggy soil and it is so alkaline with pH 7.8 that plants that prefer more acidic conditions will simply not grow.
My house, seems to be governed more by excess than by limits. The pH is fine for most plants and all of the essential elements are present in sufficient quantity that there are no signs of chlorosis or any nutrient deficency. With a phosphorus off the scale and high and extemely high levels of other elements there are no outward signs of excess except with the poorer root formation of the root crops. Even that has gotten better now that I have dialed back the nitrogen a lot. I probably need to dial it back some more. I did try not adding nitrogen for the second set of corn but they got 2 ft shorter in the second crop so it is being used up. I am also now rotating the high user corn with cabbage scavengers that will scavenge the leftover nitrogen and take out some of the calcium at the same time.
When I tried to go all organic, I could not get enough nitrogen in so I got very short plants all around. They were healthy just shorter and less productive. The nitrogen definitely was a limiting factor there and blood meal was the closest thing I could get to a pure nitrogen source. It just did not have most of the nitrogen available at the right time. Soil tests don't help me here because I would have to ask specifically for nitrogen and I would only get total nitrogen not available nitrogen. I can tell that just by looking at the plants. I have sent tissue samples and they have all been adequate even the small plants had adequate levels of nitrogen.
I am trying to figure out how to get the plants bigger with the least amount of fertilizer so that it is efficient, enough without being in excess. How much organic fertilizer do you add? How many bags of steer manure per 100 sq feet. How many pounds of organic fertilizer per 100 sq ft and do you dilute the fish fertilizer more than on the label? The one thing I did learn for my situation is that I can only add up to 20% compost, roughly 3 inches to my soil at one time so as not to make things more alkaline than they already are. Adding compost to my acidic garden in that quantity has not changed it much, but adding more caused issues with some of the plants that did not like the higher pH and my clay soil holds a lot of water and the compost kept everything too soggy especially when it rains. Plants would turn yellow and rot. I am looking for alternatives to the sulfate of ammonia for slower release but in adequate amounts to get the size I want. I would have to add sulfur to keep the pH from going any higher in the alkaline plots.
I have been using a lot less sulfate of ammonia with the addition of more compost, and the recommendation that I should divide the feedings and I only needed $0.30 worth, so I think the soil web is still building up. Too bad, I could use a test for that.
I do have PH-test kit, but never used it, so far I have acid loving moss everywere so that tells me I can add my woodash on everything but the berries. When I start to see it withdraw from my garden soil I do inted to test the ph to see that I'm not making it to alkaline.
I do agree with with you imafan26 that nitrogen is the trickiest to get by, but mulching with grassclippings and rootfree and seedfree weeds from the garden is a good approach grass is also very mineral rich it can have around 100 different minerals (if present in the soil). I have the same problems when it comes to compost I have some piles with only leafs and small twigs.
Only time I really use a commercial product is in my indoors growing, I have some liquid humus product they made from paperindustri waste I think, its called bio bact and is quite good but boy these things are expensive. I wouldnt wanna use it to any extent. I don't deal with manures other than the ones wild life bring to me, theres no organic sources either even if I wanted to, just junk full with antibiotics and heavymetals not something I wanna bring to my garden. I do bring in organic material from other sources like kitchen scraps, yard"waste" and such things.
Making sure you have lots of birds is also a good way to get free fertilizer they poop alot.
Making nettle "tea" or similar homemade products is also a very good source of Nitrogen, takes 1-2weeks to make and is free. And the end product can be used by the plants quite quick.
I must say like applestar tho, I'm not very consistent mostly because I'm not using clinical tested and produced products but natural products and you wont get that perfect consisten by that method but I'm not really looking for that. The consisten ones in my opinoin is the big farmers that does everything by date year after year adding fert spraying if needed or not, etc etc and thats not always a good thing.
Going organic rarely works well in the first years, specially not if converting land thats been used in chemical based gardening/farming, it takes time to build up soil life, it does take a few years, might take more for some of the more sensetive organisms to become present I'm sure.
To get rid of the water holding capability of clay soils organic matter is the best way in my opinion, but can take some time as well. After three years my clay soil is turning very nice dark humus rich soil with good drainage. have another spot that is only 2 years and its quite the difference between them two. First year I did turn in organic matter into the soil. But since I'm only adding it to the top, its so full of earthworms they dig and aerate the soil for me, this alone also helps with drainaige. I do have a offseason tho (the winter) before that in the end harvest I add more organic matter on top of the soil and the snow and worms love it, they recomment that you remove this in spring so that the soil may heat up better, nonsense! My soil was frost free long before my neighbours bare soil I planted in the ground before he planted anything in his greenhouse... Mine was full of worms and microbes helping heating up the soil, also it isolates the ground during the vinter thus preventing the frost from going as deep.
Organic gardening requires a bit more patience than conventional gardening in my experience.
I do agree with with you imafan26 that nitrogen is the trickiest to get by, but mulching with grassclippings and rootfree and seedfree weeds from the garden is a good approach grass is also very mineral rich it can have around 100 different minerals (if present in the soil). I have the same problems when it comes to compost I have some piles with only leafs and small twigs.
Only time I really use a commercial product is in my indoors growing, I have some liquid humus product they made from paperindustri waste I think, its called bio bact and is quite good but boy these things are expensive. I wouldnt wanna use it to any extent. I don't deal with manures other than the ones wild life bring to me, theres no organic sources either even if I wanted to, just junk full with antibiotics and heavymetals not something I wanna bring to my garden. I do bring in organic material from other sources like kitchen scraps, yard"waste" and such things.
Making sure you have lots of birds is also a good way to get free fertilizer they poop alot.
Making nettle "tea" or similar homemade products is also a very good source of Nitrogen, takes 1-2weeks to make and is free. And the end product can be used by the plants quite quick.
I must say like applestar tho, I'm not very consistent mostly because I'm not using clinical tested and produced products but natural products and you wont get that perfect consisten by that method but I'm not really looking for that. The consisten ones in my opinoin is the big farmers that does everything by date year after year adding fert spraying if needed or not, etc etc and thats not always a good thing.
Going organic rarely works well in the first years, specially not if converting land thats been used in chemical based gardening/farming, it takes time to build up soil life, it does take a few years, might take more for some of the more sensetive organisms to become present I'm sure.
To get rid of the water holding capability of clay soils organic matter is the best way in my opinion, but can take some time as well. After three years my clay soil is turning very nice dark humus rich soil with good drainage. have another spot that is only 2 years and its quite the difference between them two. First year I did turn in organic matter into the soil. But since I'm only adding it to the top, its so full of earthworms they dig and aerate the soil for me, this alone also helps with drainaige. I do have a offseason tho (the winter) before that in the end harvest I add more organic matter on top of the soil and the snow and worms love it, they recomment that you remove this in spring so that the soil may heat up better, nonsense! My soil was frost free long before my neighbours bare soil I planted in the ground before he planted anything in his greenhouse... Mine was full of worms and microbes helping heating up the soil, also it isolates the ground during the vinter thus preventing the frost from going as deep.
Organic gardening requires a bit more patience than conventional gardening in my experience.
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feldon30
- Senior Member
- Posts: 209
- Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2014 7:42 am
- Location: Rock Hill, SC
- Contact: Website
I would say yes the typical gardener who applies 13-13-13 (or stronger) to everything probably overfertilizes yes. When I was selling tomato transplants at a farmer's market, I spoke to more than one person who applied 30-30-30 and were puzzled as to why they got big bushy green plants and no tomatoes.
I only use heavy nitrogen for one crop -- Corn. I apply 45-0-0 when it is knee-high and again when it is 4 feet tall.
For everything else, I prefer a low N number. For tomatoes my go-to used to be TomatoTone 4-7-10 which feels like the perfect numbers for tomatoes to me. Tons of fert for roots, blooms, and fruit, and low N. However they reformulated it to 3-5-6 and it's not nearly as strong (the plants behaved like more like I'd applied 1-3-4). I underfertilized last year and got small tomato plants and not much output (5-10 fruit per plant).
So I'm at a bit of a loss this year as to how hard to hit my tomato plants. I think it's easy to read one research paper based on a specific set of sampling data (which probably doesn't represent the average participant in a garden forum who is likely more circumspect and cautious) and make an overcorrection to our own gardening habits.
I only use heavy nitrogen for one crop -- Corn. I apply 45-0-0 when it is knee-high and again when it is 4 feet tall.
For everything else, I prefer a low N number. For tomatoes my go-to used to be TomatoTone 4-7-10 which feels like the perfect numbers for tomatoes to me. Tons of fert for roots, blooms, and fruit, and low N. However they reformulated it to 3-5-6 and it's not nearly as strong (the plants behaved like more like I'd applied 1-3-4). I underfertilized last year and got small tomato plants and not much output (5-10 fruit per plant).
So I'm at a bit of a loss this year as to how hard to hit my tomato plants. I think it's easy to read one research paper based on a specific set of sampling data (which probably doesn't represent the average participant in a garden forum who is likely more circumspect and cautious) and make an overcorrection to our own gardening habits.
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applestar
- Mod
- Posts: 30540
- Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
- Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)
I do use these kinds of articles as a guide 
Weeds as Indicators of Environmental Conditions
https://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/tgtre/ar ... 00jun9.pdf
Weeds as Indicators Of Soil Conditions
https://eap.mcgill.ca/publications/EAP67.htm
Weeds as Indicators of Environmental Conditions
https://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/tgtre/ar ... 00jun9.pdf
The presence of certain weeds isn't accidental.
Good weed management depends on understanding the underlying conditions that allow weeds to flourish. That may mean investigating soil conditions, mowing, moisture or shade conditions first
Weeds as Indicators Of Soil Conditions
https://eap.mcgill.ca/publications/EAP67.htm
(4) Perennial weeds often make better indicators than annuals
Perennial weeds, having been able to tolerate the conditions in a particular locality for more than one year, are often more reliable indicators than annuals, which may survive only one season.
(5) Weed communities are better indicators than single species
The presence of a group of weeds that are associated with one another because of similar requirements for certain soil conditions provides a more reliable indicator in contrast to a single weed species, which may only indicate chance establishment.
https://eap.mcgill.ca/publications/eap67.fig1.gif
https://eap.mcgill.ca/publications/eap67.fig2.gif
I have mostly perennial weeds and I have cut most of the grass out. It is also full of nutsedge and other weeds so, I would not want to use that on the garden. I do use vermicast when I have it. It is about the only organic that has not adversely affected the potting mix.
Feldon, I think you have found the magic number for nitrogen. Vigoro 6-4-6 citrus food is what I use on the tomatoes and they are still 7 ft tall and productive. An organic 3 is like a 1.5% available nitrogen which is what I got the time I tried to go with blood meal and steer manure. I got healthy but short plants. So 4% nitrogen seems to be the magic number. I will have to ask my friend how to convert that to spoons of sulfate of ammonia.
Feldon, I think you have found the magic number for nitrogen. Vigoro 6-4-6 citrus food is what I use on the tomatoes and they are still 7 ft tall and productive. An organic 3 is like a 1.5% available nitrogen which is what I got the time I tried to go with blood meal and steer manure. I got healthy but short plants. So 4% nitrogen seems to be the magic number. I will have to ask my friend how to convert that to spoons of sulfate of ammonia.
Another thing I came to think about when it comes to soil depletion it also has to do with if your adding synthetic fertilizers and no organic matter it will flush out so easy because it lack organic matter to cling on to basically.
Checked the liquid organic fertilizer product I mentioned earlier its N-P-K 3-0-1, thats right has no P apperantly with my organic methods I never cared to much about the N-P-K since its only three out of over hundred elements anyway so to my understanding that far from the whole story, infact its just the teaser from the back of the book. And I'm not about making plants grow I want the best food I can manage to get.
Checked the liquid organic fertilizer product I mentioned earlier its N-P-K 3-0-1, thats right has no P apperantly with my organic methods I never cared to much about the N-P-K since its only three out of over hundred elements anyway so to my understanding that far from the whole story, infact its just the teaser from the back of the book. And I'm not about making plants grow I want the best food I can manage to get.
Nutsedge here can grow anywhere from sand to clay. If it is in a flooded area long enough it will turn yellow but it needs to be drowned for 2 years to kill it. It actually grows anywhere the soil is bare. I have a lot of it in my garden and keeping the garden planted is the only thing that keep it in check since it needs light and my garden has a lot of clay and organic matter and it drains very well.
I have noticed on very poor soils that don't have a lot of organic matter that weeds don't grow well at all and the ground is literally hard as a rock.
I have a lot of organic matter and my soil tests indicate that the soil is only very slowly washing out. It has been 8 years and it is time for another soil test, but I probably still only need to add nitrogen for awhile in most of my plots. Most of that was synthetic fertilizer. Even in the organic herb garden, the soil tests there were also still high P,K, and Ca. Nitrogen is lower there because of the much shorter plants and compost and meal are the usual additives. Meat meal is sold locally and it is made by recycling the old meat and bones from the markets, grinding and boiling it. It is sold as animal feed, but it is used like bone meal and the extra meat adds nitrogen. It needs to be buried and used quickly otherwise it will rot and stink. The mongoose like to dig it up and eat it. I don't really like to use it in the herb garden because they burrow and dig everything up. A similar thing happens with trench composting. The mongoose dig it up for the grubs it attacts.
I have noticed on very poor soils that don't have a lot of organic matter that weeds don't grow well at all and the ground is literally hard as a rock.
I have a lot of organic matter and my soil tests indicate that the soil is only very slowly washing out. It has been 8 years and it is time for another soil test, but I probably still only need to add nitrogen for awhile in most of my plots. Most of that was synthetic fertilizer. Even in the organic herb garden, the soil tests there were also still high P,K, and Ca. Nitrogen is lower there because of the much shorter plants and compost and meal are the usual additives. Meat meal is sold locally and it is made by recycling the old meat and bones from the markets, grinding and boiling it. It is sold as animal feed, but it is used like bone meal and the extra meat adds nitrogen. It needs to be buried and used quickly otherwise it will rot and stink. The mongoose like to dig it up and eat it. I don't really like to use it in the herb garden because they burrow and dig everything up. A similar thing happens with trench composting. The mongoose dig it up for the grubs it attacts.
Then you shouldnt worry to much of soil depletion in my opinion. Is it washing out? Or is your produce taking it out? Can the test really tell wich?
Came to think about another thing (my mind works slow). Nitrogen fixing plants most people heard of, they work with bacteria, but there is also bacteria that without direct relationship with any plants also binds nitrogen from the air, these bacteria are very sensetive against the modern synthetic growing methods thus increasing the need for external nitrogen.
I'm no fan of using animal based products, many likes it becouse it keeps the herbivorous animals away and they have been nothing but beneficial to me.
Came to think about another thing (my mind works slow). Nitrogen fixing plants most people heard of, they work with bacteria, but there is also bacteria that without direct relationship with any plants also binds nitrogen from the air, these bacteria are very sensetive against the modern synthetic growing methods thus increasing the need for external nitrogen.
I'm no fan of using animal based products, many likes it becouse it keeps the herbivorous animals away and they have been nothing but beneficial to me.
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Taiji
- Greener Thumb
- Posts: 921
- Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:19 am
- Location: Gardening in western U.P. of MI. 46+ N. lat. elev 1540. zone 3; state bird: mosquito
Imafan, I would like to try that Vigoro 6-4-6 on my tomatoes this year if I can find it. I have seen some bags of citrus food in the stores here, but never noticed the proportions. Wondered how often to apply in the season, (my season is about 6 months, give or take), when to apply, etc.
I usually get really huge tomato plants with lots of growth and I do usually get a good harvest eventually, but suspect I could do better. I think I use maybe too much N. I just use a multi purpose fertilizer, supposed to be good for this area. 16-8-8. Probably too strong?
I usually get really huge tomato plants with lots of growth and I do usually get a good harvest eventually, but suspect I could do better. I think I use maybe too much N. I just use a multi purpose fertilizer, supposed to be good for this area. 16-8-8. Probably too strong?
Taiji:
That much nitrogen would only benefit in the growing stage, once you want flower and fruit preferably before that should change to a product with lower nitrogen. If your using a slowrelease product that one aint that suitable for tomatoes. Better for leafy green vegtebles and such. Excess nitrogen will grow foilage not fruits. It will work but with lower yealds generally.
You may use a slowrelease product with lower nitrogen and then add something like nettle tea in the early stages to promote growth.
That much nitrogen would only benefit in the growing stage, once you want flower and fruit preferably before that should change to a product with lower nitrogen. If your using a slowrelease product that one aint that suitable for tomatoes. Better for leafy green vegtebles and such. Excess nitrogen will grow foilage not fruits. It will work but with lower yealds generally.
You may use a slowrelease product with lower nitrogen and then add something like nettle tea in the early stages to promote growth.
6% nitrogen is pretty low for a synthetic and it is a slow nitrogen so it does not affect fruiting as much as say urea would. And plants do need more nitrogen while they are in their growth stage. If the plants don't grow they don't have the mass to support a lot of fruit. Nitrogen does not hang around for long because it is easily lost. The trick is to have it when the plants need it and to get the dosage and timing right to support the plant in the growth stages but to reduce the available nitrogen to promote more fruit later on. The Michigan University fertilizer study determined that is was not high phosphorus at all that promoted more fruiting directly but the relative lack of nitrogen. In other words too much nitrogen kept the plants in growth mode at the expense of fruiting. Reducing the nitrogen at the right time for each plant was what stopped growth and moved the plants into their bloom phase. The highest NPK I found organically was blood meal at 13%. Nitrogen and it was the most rapid in release, but it is very expensive to use. Other organic sources of nitrogen only have a fraction of the N available dependent on a lot of factors: microbes present to mineralize the organic nitrogen, soil temperature, pH, moisture, and rate of volatization and demineralization. It makes the release of any organic nitrogen unpredictable while synthetic nitrogen is readily available to plants and uptake is more predictable.
Young plants need more nitrogen than older plants. if they don't get it when they need it ultimately yields are lower. It is also why it can take years for an organic field to increase yields because it can take years for some forms of organic nitrogen to release. It is also why nitrogen is the most limiting factor of growth on organic farms.
It is also why it is a good idea to use just enough to get the growth that is desired without too much extra that will inhibit blooming or fruiting or cause too much N excess in the environment.
It is why I divide the nitrogen into installments. The first when the seedlings are transplanted or as a starter fertilizer (sulfate of ammonia) , next with the first bloom (citrus food in potted plants only) , then with the first fruit and monthly thereafter. It is also why I use a low N fertilizer for the subsequent feeding in pots. In the ground they get only starter sulfate of ammonia and I have been reducing the amounts, but it looks like I can cut a bit more in the acidic plot but increase it in the alkaline plots since growth is still under what is expected especially for tomatoes in the alkaline plots.
https://www.ipni.net/ppiweb/bcrops.nsf/ ... 8-4p16.pdf
Young plants need more nitrogen than older plants. if they don't get it when they need it ultimately yields are lower. It is also why it can take years for an organic field to increase yields because it can take years for some forms of organic nitrogen to release. It is also why nitrogen is the most limiting factor of growth on organic farms.
It is also why it is a good idea to use just enough to get the growth that is desired without too much extra that will inhibit blooming or fruiting or cause too much N excess in the environment.
It is why I divide the nitrogen into installments. The first when the seedlings are transplanted or as a starter fertilizer (sulfate of ammonia) , next with the first bloom (citrus food in potted plants only) , then with the first fruit and monthly thereafter. It is also why I use a low N fertilizer for the subsequent feeding in pots. In the ground they get only starter sulfate of ammonia and I have been reducing the amounts, but it looks like I can cut a bit more in the acidic plot but increase it in the alkaline plots since growth is still under what is expected especially for tomatoes in the alkaline plots.
https://www.ipni.net/ppiweb/bcrops.nsf/ ... 8-4p16.pdf
My garden is acidic so nitrogen is most available. The other nutrients are high as well and I don't have to add any thing else. Since my green plants are still giants, I know I have enough and don't need to add more. If I add more none of the bulbing crops like daikon, beets, or garlic produce any appreciable roots, only very large tops.
In more alkaline conditions like the herb garden pH 7.8 and the community garden pH 7.4 root crops do better, partly because nitrogen is less available and with my type of soil phosphorus becomes more available at the higher pH. All the plots have added organic matter. Even though the alkaline plots get more nitrogen than the acidic plot, the roots crops grow better in more alkaline conditions and tomatoes are bigger and more productive in acid conditions. I am still adding too much nitrogen to my acidic plots even though I only use a starter. Most people would provide nitrogen in installments, I just have a lot of nitrogen so I don't need to. In fact, after I plant a high nitrogen feeder like corn, I have enough residual nitrogen for the scavenger crop of Asian greens that follow.
I do not grow a lot of legumes in the acidic garden since I grow those in the tomato pots, so I don't really know how much nitrogen fixing goes on. I don't like a lot of legumes so I don't really plant much. At the herb garden, I have inoculated cow peas as a green manure and the nitrogen fixing nodules increased from 0-4 to about 12, but it did not last even with double cropping in alkaline and poorly drained soil.
If your soil is alkaline, and you are not getting giant leaves on your plants, it is probably better to give nitrogen in organic or inorganic form and time the release so that it is most available to the plants when they are in a growth spurt. It is harder to do organically since the release rate is less predictable. Nitrogen releases slower in cold soils since the microbes are less active and Nitrogen is volatile so it should be worked into the soil not just applied on top.
You need to apply any fertilizer dependent on your soil conditions and plant needs. Heavy feeders like corn, broccoli, and cucumbers want more nitrogen than heavy givers like beans, peas, and peanuts (legumes). Light feeders like the root crops beets, and onions need less. Low nitrogen users are turnips and sweetpotatoes.
I rotate my heavy feeders with scavenger crops that will get no additional nigtrogen.
In more alkaline conditions like the herb garden pH 7.8 and the community garden pH 7.4 root crops do better, partly because nitrogen is less available and with my type of soil phosphorus becomes more available at the higher pH. All the plots have added organic matter. Even though the alkaline plots get more nitrogen than the acidic plot, the roots crops grow better in more alkaline conditions and tomatoes are bigger and more productive in acid conditions. I am still adding too much nitrogen to my acidic plots even though I only use a starter. Most people would provide nitrogen in installments, I just have a lot of nitrogen so I don't need to. In fact, after I plant a high nitrogen feeder like corn, I have enough residual nitrogen for the scavenger crop of Asian greens that follow.
I do not grow a lot of legumes in the acidic garden since I grow those in the tomato pots, so I don't really know how much nitrogen fixing goes on. I don't like a lot of legumes so I don't really plant much. At the herb garden, I have inoculated cow peas as a green manure and the nitrogen fixing nodules increased from 0-4 to about 12, but it did not last even with double cropping in alkaline and poorly drained soil.
If your soil is alkaline, and you are not getting giant leaves on your plants, it is probably better to give nitrogen in organic or inorganic form and time the release so that it is most available to the plants when they are in a growth spurt. It is harder to do organically since the release rate is less predictable. Nitrogen releases slower in cold soils since the microbes are less active and Nitrogen is volatile so it should be worked into the soil not just applied on top.
You need to apply any fertilizer dependent on your soil conditions and plant needs. Heavy feeders like corn, broccoli, and cucumbers want more nitrogen than heavy givers like beans, peas, and peanuts (legumes). Light feeders like the root crops beets, and onions need less. Low nitrogen users are turnips and sweetpotatoes.
I rotate my heavy feeders with scavenger crops that will get no additional nigtrogen.
If you have alkaline soil chicken manure is not good for that. Layer chickens are fed calcium and what goes in comes out. Chicken manure can raise the pH another 0.5 point higher which is fine if you have an acidic soil but will make a pH 7.8 rise to pH 8.2. The local composter stopped adding chicken manure to their compost garden mix because of that. The compost tested at a pH of 7.8.