During the summer drought we pray for rain, but we need to plan for it as well. The downpour has a down side, washing minerals from the soil that the plants need to thrive. To make matters worse, we lose even more when the crop is harvested and consumed, removing the minerals they have absorbed. To garden sustainably we need to be aware of this cycle; if we don’t return these minerals to the soil, our produce gradually becomes less nutritious.
Most commercial farmers don’t replace these essential minerals. The added cost to the customer makes their product less competitive when it reaches the market so they settle for a crop that looks good but lacks both the flavour and nutritional value it could contain. To grow the most nutritious and flavourful food we must replace the depleted minerals to the soil for the coming spring.
With the approach of Valentine’s Day we are encouraged to buy dead flowers and fattening chocolates for our significant others, but this gardener would prefer a truckload of aged manure. Chicken is best but cow and horse will do, although harder to gift wrap. These return many nutrients to depleted soil, but not enough.
To ensure quality results I add a fertilizer mix I make up following author Steve Solomon’s recipe for sandy soils. Kelp meal adds trace minerals as well as other ingredients that help plants grow, so Solomon includes this in his formulae.
Seaweed harvested from beaches adds minerals as well, but one should rinse off the salt water first. I personally covet the milfoil weed down at Bear Lake; sadly we are not allowed to touch the riparian zone where it grows. In Osoyoos they encourage citizen use of milfoil from the lake that the city conveniently dredges every year.
Although every garden needs regular inputs of minerals, some soils leech them out more readily than others, so it behooves us to know the soil type we garden in.
Mine, for example, is sand all the way down and the only topsoil and nutrients are what we added, and I replenish this every spring. Cover crop also helps protect the soil, retains nutrients and adds its own to the soil as well.
Here are Solomon’s fertilizer recipes for clay and sandy soils:
Fertilizer for clay soils:
4 litres seed meal (I use alfalfa meal) ½ litre agricultural lime
½ litre agricultural gypsum 1 litre soft rock phosphate
150 gm. Potassium sulphate 1 T. boron
2 tsp. zinc sulphate 2 tsp. copper sulphate
½ litre kelp meal 1/8 tsp. sodium molybdate
Fertilizer for sandy soils:
4 litres seed meal ¼ litre dolomite lime
¼ litre agricultural lime ¼ litre agricultural gypsum
½ litre soft rock phosphate ½ cup potassium sulphate
1 ½ T. manganese sulphate (NOT magnesium sulphate)
2 tsp. zinc sulphate 2 tsp. copper sulphate
1 T. borax ½ litre kelp meal
1/8 tsp. sodium molybdate
Directions for either mix: Mix these ingredients so they’re uniformly blended. Spread on ten square metres.
(I wear a mask when I’m mixing the fertilizer, even when turning it over in the wheelbarrow outside).
David has suggested I could replace manure with shredded budget speeches. While the content may appear to be similar, I suspect the speeches would not provide much substance and probably contain too many toxins.
