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How to Prepare Garden Soil for Planting :: Green and Organic Fertilizing

The biggest mistake beginning gardeners make is using lousy or too-thin soil. Before planting anything in your yard, prepare your garden beds by digging to loosen the soil and adding organic material! This prep work can save you untold disappointment and, perhaps more than any other factor, assure a bountiful and delicious harvest.

If you're working with a brand-new garden (or one that fell fallow and you're bringing it back to life), you can stake it and get it ready the autumn before you plan to plant. This act gives the soil and the amendments you've added time to settle and meld. It also means you have less work to do next spring.

If a fall start isn't possible or practical, go ahead and prepare the ground in spring — but don't start too early. If the ground is still semi-frozen or soggy, digging in the soil can compact it and harm its structure. How do you tell whether it's ready to be worked in? Grab a handful and squeeze — it should fall apart, not form a mud ball.

Follow these steps when preparing your soil:

1.           Dig deep.

Most plants are content with 6 to 8 inches of good ground for their roots to grow in.

If you're planning to grow substantial root crops (potatoes, say, or carrots), go deeper still — up to a foot or more (yes, you can use a technique called hilling, where you mound up good soil around crops like potatoes, but this method doesn't excuse your making a shallow vegetable garden).

2.           Fill it up.

Add lots and lots of organic matter! Try using compost, dehydrated cow manure, shredded leaves, well-rotted horse or sheep manure (call nearby stables), or a mixture. If your yard happens to be blessed with fertile soil, adding organic matter is less crucial, but most soils can stand the improvement. Mix it with the native soil, 50-50, or even more liberally.

Maybe your area's soil is notoriously acidic, or very sandy, or quite obviously lousy for plant growth. The good news is that organic matter can be like a magic bullet in that it helps improve whatever you add it to. You have to replenish the organic matter at the start of every growing season or maybe even more often. (If the soil stubbornly resists improvement, resort to setting raised beds atop it and filling these bottomless boxes with excellent, organically rich soil.)

Animal-Based Fertilizers for Organic Gardens

Animals, fish, and birds all provide organic fertilizers that can help plants grow. Animal-based fertilizers contain nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium – the primary nutrients plants need to grow. They each play a critical role in plant growth and development.

If your soil is deficient or if you're growing vegetables, fruits, or other demanding crops, you may want to supplement the soil's nutrients with these animal-based fertilizers:

·         Manures: Animal manures provide lots of organic matter to the soil, but most have low nutrient value. A few, such as chicken manure, do have high available nitrogen content. In general, use only composted manures, because fresh manures can burn tender roots.

·         Bat/ seabird guano: Yes, this product is what it sounds like -- the poop of bats and seabirds. Guano comes in powdered or pellet form and is high in nitrogen (10 to 12 percent).

Bat guano provides only about 2 percent phosphorous and no potassium, but seabird guano contains 10 to 12 percent P, plus 2 percent K. The concentrated nitrogen in these products can burn roots if they're not used carefully.

·         Blood meal: Blood meal is the powdered blood of slaughtered animals. It contains about 14 percent nitrogen and many micronutrients. Leafy, nitrogen-loving plants such as lettuce grow well with this fertilizer. Reportedly, blood meal also repels deer (but may attract dogs and cats).

·         Bonemeal: A popular source of phosphorous (11 percent) and calcium (22 percent), bonemeal is derived from animal or fish bones and is commonly used in powdered form on root crops and bulbs. It also contains 2 percent nitrogen and many micronutrients. It may attract rodents.

·         Fish products: Fish by-products make excellent fertilizers, and you can buy them in several forms:

Fish emulsion is derived from the fermented remains of fish. This liquid product can have a fishy smell (even the deodorized version), but it's a great complete fertilizer (5-2-2) and adds trace elements to the soil. When mixed with water, it's gentle yet effective for stimulating the growth of young seedlings.

Hydrolyzed fish powder has higher nitrogen content (12 percent) than fish emulsion; it's mixed with water and sprayed on plants.

Fish meal, which is high in nitrogen and phosphorus, is applied to the soil.

Other animal-based organic fertilizers include crab meal, dried whey, earthworm castings, feather meal, and leather meal.

Using composted human waste (euphemistically called night soil) to fertilize gardens has been a common practice in countries such as China for generations. In many Western countries, our version of this practice is using composted sewage sludge as fertilizer. Modern sewage treatment plants, however, receive waste from many sources, including industries. Although sludge has fertilizer and soil-building value, sewage sludge is not generally considered to be an organic fertilizer, because it may contain toxic heavy metals that accumulate in the soil. Although you can buy granular fertilizers made from sludge, organic gardeners generally avoid them.

 

Mix in Brown and Green Compost Ingredients

Organic matter high in carbon — what composters commonly call browns — provides energy for decomposer organisms as they consume and break down the contents of your compost pile. Organic matter high in nitrogen — called greens — supplies the decomposers with protein. Maintain well-fed composting organisms with these varied ingredients.

Browns	Greens
Dry leaves	Kitchen scraps
Woody plant trimmings	Coffee grounds and filters
Straw	Leafy plant trimmings
Pine needles	Grass clippings
Sawdust	Manure
Paper products	Feathers, fur, and hair

Posted by jose Monday May 24, 2010 16:40
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