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Mary Lowther column: Healthy soil key to healthy plants

Untilled soil will also prevent disease as the plants have continued contact with micro biota
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Compost tea, left, diluted and sprayed on strawberry plants, produces the berries right. (Mary Lowther photo)

The ancients recommended against pride because Hubris doesn’t like know-it-alls, but I can’t help feeling smug when my plants just don’t suffer from diseases. It’s demoralizing to spend so much time, energy and money into the garden, only to see it destroyed by disease, as if insects and other varmints aren’t enough to deal with, so today I want to share some rules I follow to keep my plants healthy.

First, make sure your soil is well balanced, and if that means getting a soil test, it’s worth it. You don’t need to get one every year, but when starting a new garden it helps to know what’s in the soil, so you know what minerals it needs. Healthy plants require a full spectrum of minerals besides the nitrogen, potassium and phosphate that come in commercial fertilizers. Think of how we take supplements to boost our own immune systems.

Better plant health has a cost, but the mineral dusts I add to my fertilizer mix will last for years, so the original outlay balances out over time. Besides, a diet of healthy, fully mineralized plants reduces the need to buy supplements of my own.

This year I am experimenting with mineral extractions, as explained by Nigel Palmer in his book The Regenerative Gardener’s Guide to Garden Amendments. Future soil analyses should confirm how well they work, but the robust and productive crops I am getting are already proving his point.

Untilled soil will also prevent disease as the plants have continued contact with micro biota; microscopic life forms that attach to plant roots and live in a symbiotic relationship with them. The plants feed them sugars and the microscopic life in turn feed plants nutrients in a form the they can absorb. Fungi in the soil attach to the roots, effectively extending their length and ability to access nutrients and water from farther away.

Soaker hoses prevent air borne diseases that stick to wet leaves because these hoses wet only the soil and not the leaves or stems of plants, leaving everything dry above the soil. Tomato blight and peach curl, for example, are triggered only when the spores get wet, which is why I cover them to protect against rainfall.

The only time I use a sprinkler or hand water with a sprayer nozzle is when I’m watering recently sown seeds or seedlings. Once they’re a few inches high I get out the soaker hoses and water them only twice a week. This seems adequate for all my vegetables and fruits, because overwatering can stress plants as much as underwatering and washes out nutrients from the soil. I attach a timer to my system so I don’t have to remember the watering schedule and (being a little obsessive/compulsive), check the batteries every few days, although they usually last all summer. OK, every year since I started using timers, the batteries have lasted all summer, but one never knows, and this might be the year they run out mid-August.

Lastly, and just as essential, compost and compost tea add enzymes and friendly bacteria that prevent disease. When diluted and sprinkled on leaves or soaked into the soil, the tea feeds plants and kills off potential pathogens while compost itself will add the same goods, and feed soil nutrients. If this morning’s strawberry crop is any indication, the Garden Goddess has approved and asked Hubris to pass me by.

Please contact mary_lowther@yahoo.ca with questions and suggestions since I need all the help I can get.