Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

Sorry to say that this is a very confusing mail to me. If you are low in 
phosphate you will need to find some source of phosphate. If it is not there 
plants are not going to get it for you. But if it is not there you should 
not have abundant red clover.
Manure by the way contains more than just N. Animals recycle all the 
nutrients they have been fed and there should be more than 60 different 
elements in that manure and definitely also phosphate.
A word of warning perhaps though for these days there are pesticides mostly 
used on gras and grain that kill all broad leaved plants. These persist in 
the manure and if you use that stuff you could sterilize your growing area 
for more than ten years. Before we bring in manure we do a germination test. 
Tomato seeds are very sensitive to these pesticides and will not germinate 
properly when these pesticides are present.

I was never succesful here in Ireland with either buckwheat or butternut 
squash. Brassicas need heavy feeding and lots of nitrogen and if they don't 
do well for you may be short while you think you have a lot of it. Or, you 
may be short of water for brassicas and turnips can not do well without. Or 
maybe they were planted too close together.
I would not ever dig in any cover crop. I may hoe it down to the ground and 
then the worms do all the digging that needs doing.
john

> Hi all,
>
> While the latest threads on sustainability and whether or not we are all 
> going to die of raised temperatures is fascinating and thought provoking 
> (seriously, I'm learning a lot), could we have some discussion now and 
> again on actual gardening techniques? I'm particularly thinking about 
> putting in a winter cover crop, as opposed to just covering my garden 
> plots with leaves, straw, manure, etc. Now Ken's CD has a list of some 
> cover crops for various applications --to increase nitrogen or to uptake 
> phosphorus, for example-- but I'm wondering what would be the best 
> application for southern New England. I'm a little short on phosphorus; I 
> can get all the manure (N) I want from a couple of local farms, and I have 
> tons of wood ash (K). I look on the list and I see Buckwheat will uptake 
> phosphorus, but it's grown as a spring/summer crop. I don't have so much 
> area for gardening that I can tie up a good chunk for buckwheat (though I 
> could, and would, harvest the seeds). Also Red Clover will accumulate P, 
> but again, as it won't die down in the winter, I'd have to figure out a 
> way to remove it without tilling so I can plant where it grew. Tiny seeds 
> like the Brassicas won't grow in slits cut in the clover, and I've had 
> poor success with seedlings. Mowing closely would work I suppose if it 
> kills the root, but I want to get away from using fossil-fuel power. I've 
> considered planting the buckwheat after harvest so it gets up a bit before 
> frost, but will it have time to grow enough to be worthwhile? I think the 
> list was created with the idea the crops would be tilled under.
>
> I wonder if the low Phosphorus, or high Nitrogen, was the cause of my 
> onions being really small, and my turnips being non-existent. Plenty of 
> greens, just no turnip roots. Brassicas in general, (collards, brussels 
> sprouts, broccoli) just not doing well. On the other hand, I'm having a 
> bumper crop of Butternut squash!
>
> What has worked well for you in New England? Am I better off just using 
> the composted material top dressed as I have been? What about phosphorus? 
> The manures I have access to are horse and llama, which have some 
> phosphate but not a lot. Maybe sheep in a year or so. I am unlikely to be 
> adding urine as was discussed not long ago. I can get phosphate rock, but 
> it's mined so will be a finite, and unsustainable, supply.
>
> Thanks,
> Barbara M, Foster, RI
>
> --
> "Animals Are A Gift"
>
> _______________________________________________
> Livingontheland mailing list
> Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland