Let's start on your sustainable garden by looking at
the soil. Many people have been told they must amend
their soil with compost or manure in order to grow
healthy vegetables successfully. Amending with 25% of
organic material is often recommended.
Organic materials can improve soil structure, provide
food for beneficial soil bacteria, and add mineral
nutrients. Before using them, however, they should be
clean - weed, insect and disease-free. And beyond
that, there are still three problems with depending
exclusively on organic materials:
- You never know which nutrients and what amounts
were in the previous plant.
- Much of the plant was eaten and became part of the
man or animal.
- The nutrients are not usable until the old plant
has decomposed and reverts once again to
water-soluble minerals. This takes time and
fast-growing vegetable plants can't wait. Plus,
even more nutrients are lost or become unavailable
in the decomposition process.
What about the nutrients you receive? Cow and horse
manure contain about 1% nitrogen, and compost usually
somewhat less. If you add 2 inches of manure to a
small (30x50 foot) garden and till in, you are in
effect spreading 150 pounds of nitrogen on 1500
square feet of garden, or 1 pound of nitrogen in 10
square feet ALL AT ONCE. (And you wonder why your
plants burn up quickly.) Furthermore, the plants
that don't burn up at the beginning are hungry after
6 or 8 weeks, because nitrogen is volatile, and it's
virtually all gone in just a few weeks.
And just in practical terms, amending the soil with
compost or manure requires a great deal of time and
work! Instead I recommend just 2 ounces of nitrogen
- as a part of a balanced natural mineral nutrient
mix - be applied in a 45 square foot soil-bed, and
that application repeated weekly 4 times for single
crop varieties.
This way you apply 1 pound of nitrogen to 90 square
feet of growing space over a period of a month,
instead of 1 pound in 10 feet all at once at the
beginning.
You can have a great garden in any soil, without
adding any amendments at all, if you follow the Food
For Everyone Foundation's simple instructions at
www.foodforeveryone.org.
And if your ground is so rocky you can't grow, or if
it is low and won't drain, just build a container and
fill it with 65-75% sawdust and 25-35% sand. Feeding
your plants in a container virtually the same nutrient
mix as you do in the natural soil will produce a great
crop also!
So your sustainable garden will feed you well,
whether you choose to grow in the dirt, or if you
have to use containers. Good growing!
Next week I'll teach you how to mix and apply the
natural mineral nutrient mixes for that great garden
in any soil!
Jim Kennard
is President of the
Food For Everyone
Foundation, a non-profit organization with the
mission of "Teaching the world to grow food one
family at a time". You'll find many free vegetable
gardening resources, including a gardening ebook,
greenhouse plans, automated watering plans, and
a free chapter from each of the great gardening
books and software CD's Jim offers, at the
website:
www.foodforeveryone.org
