Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Miranda Smith <miranda@tagoresmith.com>]

I would like to add a cautionary note about using soybean and alfalfa 
meal. I've used them for years as fertilizers and love both of them. 
However, you must incorporate them into the top layers of the soil. I 
discovered this by sidedressing a row of melons with soybean meal one 
year.  --I just laid the soybean meal on the soil surface next to the 
plants. I figured they needed quite a bit of N and probably overdid it a 
bit. At any rate, it rained and a couple of days later, the soybean meal 
was writhing with fly maggots. --Not good for the melons or the workers!

As another note, I suspect that pure soybean or alfalfa meal is too 
nutrient-rich for most plants. I'd dig it into the top layers of the soil.

And yes, as it breaks down, it will contribute to humus formation. It's 
a high-N product.

Best,

Miranda Smith

Robert Monie wrote:

> Hi,
>  
> Dr Lee Reich, an ag specialist with Cornell U, often tells beginning 
> vegetable gardeners to just lay down a layer of soybean meal over the 
> soil (maybe separated by a few layers of newspaper) and plant their 
> seeds in that. The soybean meal (like corn gluten) usually kills the 
> weeds and conditions the soil well enough to have a decent starter 
> crop. Might this be a very primitive example of protein/amino acids at 
> work? Does the protein in the soybean meal help create humus?
>  
>
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