Random Garden Blog

[southern california guy]

As you have probably heard people with aspergers tend to be obsessive.  In my case I am obsessive about gardening.   So I thought that I would start a gardening blog for other similarly obsessive people.  So other fellow gardening/plant nuts... this is our blog :D

 

I thought that I would start this random gardening blog off with a discussion of fertilizer.  

 

If you are an obsessive vegetable gardener then you have probably heard the phrase "High-brix gardening".  What is it?  Well people have found that if they give their fruits and vegetables all of the nutrients and micro nutrients, that they want, the vegetables are sweeter.  The vegetables have more sugar -- which is measured on a "brix" scale ( 1 degree Brix is 1 gram of sucrose in 100 grams of solution and represents the strength of the solution as percentage by weight).

 

Anyway ..this led to people selling fertilizer that they claimed would give you the sweetest vegetables.  Now this isn't a new idea.  Back in the '70's a man named Jacob Mittleider started publishing vegetable gardening books.  I consider his gardening method a hydroponic one.  He advocated building growing boxes that you filled with a soilless mixture of your choice of ingredients -- sawdust, peat moss, sand, gravel, perlite, etc..  Then to supply the plants with nutrients he advocated a weekly fertilization program -- which included micro nutrients.  Did it work well?  Yes, if you kept up with the fertilization program you could have great results.  Of course if you neglected to fertilize for a period of time, or ran out of money for the fertilizer.. the vegetables wouldn't do so great...  This method can produce beautiful sweet vegetables but it is a rigorous expensive one.

 

And another potential problem with the Mittleider method is that the fertility of the garden relies wholy upon the fertilizer that you apply to it.  Let's say you use a triple 15 fertilizer.  That adds up to 15 percent Nitrogen, 15 percent phosphorus, and 15 percent potassium -- and 55 percent of something else.  What is the other 55 percent?  "Base"?  What does that mean?  What is it made of?  Are there impurities, and were there industrial sources for the nutrients?  Was human waste one of the sources?  Like with the fertilizer Milorganite?

 

So does the Mittleider method still a good way to grow fruits and vegetables?  Would I recommend it?  Maybe.. for touchy fruits like strawberries it would work great.  Because they typically have problems with fungus in the soil.  You plant them, they wilt, and they are dead before you know what happened...  And they tend to prefer an acidic soil.  So if your soil is not acidic then they may not do too well.  So you could use peat moss or coconut coir as the growing medium and fertilize them using the Mittleider method and achieve great results -- where you otherwise would fail with them.

 

Anyway back to basic vegetable gardening I would recommend using a soil mix and using cheap traditional "organic" gardening (By organic gardening I mean focusing on building up the soil by adding "organic" things like compost, manure, manure tea, etc.).  It is cheaper, and in the long run much easier.  You work the manure into the garden the Fall before planting and you add the compost and manure tea in the spring.  However make sure that the "compost" is well composted.  I have had great results using the method and gardening in almost pure sand on the California coast.  And if you want to do something fancy you can always test your soil and add additional fertilizer and micronutrients.

 

Fertilizing around your ornamental plants, and fruit trees is a little different.  You are not going to be working manure or compost into the soil around an established plant because you will be disturbing the roots.  And you can add fertilizer to the hole when you plant but I have had some long time farmers advise me not to do that.  The plant is going to spread its roots out of that hole that you plant it in.  And if you work too much manure and compost into the hole you may create an environment that fungus love -- which leads to the death of your plant.  The way trees get their nutrients in nature is through leaves and such which fall on the surface, decompose, and are absorbed by the soil.  This is also how you should fertilize a tree.  Spread the mulch, composted manure, or fertilizer out around the tree.  And don't put the mulch or manure up against the trunk of the tree.  That just invites fungus and rot problems.  

 

One type of fertilizer that I like for fruit trees and ornamentals is Nutricote (Also called Florikan).  Unlike Osmocote it won't burn the plants and it is even easier on your skin.  Osmocote does work but be careful with it, and you probably don't want to use it for potted plants.  Nutricote -- like Osmocote -- is a slow release fertilizer and you only need to apply it once or twice a year (It depends on which formulation you buy).

 

Also another fertilizer that I have had very good results with is Spray-N-Grow.  The folliar fertilizers will give you great results.  However I have heard of some problems when it was sprayed on palms.

 

Anyway I think that is as much as I will talk about now.  I think that I will let other fellow plant nuts add some advice now.

 

 

[Norseman82]

 manure tea  

 

Well, I'm definitely not accepting any invitations from you for afternoon tea!!

[southern california guy]

Ahh come on over!  Have a pie of cow pie and a little manure tea  :x

 

[AnneLine]

:eek:

 

SoCalGuy, I think we should make this more a RELIGIOUS themed Easter Basket!!!!

 

Trappist Monks' compost tea....

http://www.monasterygreetings.com/product/Earth_Healer_Compost_Tea/Gardens_and_Gardening

 

Summit Domincan Nuns' Gardener's Gift basket and Gardener's soaps.... 

(Sr. Mary Catharine, their novice mistress, is a Phatmasser!)

 

http://summitdominicans.3dcartstores.com/Gardeners-Basket_p_37.html

 

http://summitdominicans.3dcartstores.com/Gardeners-Soap-Gift-Set_p_184.html

 

(and the soaps are fantastic, by the way... and the way they pay for insurance for the nuns!)

 

 

 

[Norseman82]

Anyway, what is manure tea?