Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Point well taken, IMHO.  I use alfalfa in pellet form, like rabbit feed, 
cheaper than buying alfalfa meal. I soak it in  buckets to make it a mush 
first for quicker action. The 1/8" pellets much fastest. But I only use it 
for the nitrogen to help decompose aged manure or other dried organic 
material in the soil itself. It would certainly help cook a compost pile with 
an excess of brown matter.

paul, tradingpost@riseup.net
---------------

The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not 
television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only 
those who know the most about it can appreciate how little we know about it.
   - Aldo Leopold in  Round River, 1933
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 5/23/2006 at 12:38 PM Miranda Smith wrote:

>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
>