Fertilizer

I see one of my draft articles has come of age - and published itself without my ever finishing it! (Sorry for those of you who came and saw it in its rather raw form!)

Now that most areas of the USA are warm enough for planting, we need to think some about getting the crops to grow. I do not suggest adding a lot of fertilizer at the time you plant so your new plants will not be burned by intense amount of fertilizer. What is perfect is to add manures long in advance of planting. Even better, you could allow the manures age in a compost pile where they will break down and then be ready for use in the garden.

Fertilizers generally focus on adding nitrogen to plants during the growing season, but could address the addition of any needed substance for growth. For now, let''s focus on the addition of nitrogen to your garden plot.

A garden generally needs around 60 lbs of available nitrogen per acre over a growing season. Nitrogen can come from a variety of sources, generally of plant origin, or bacteria fixing nitrogen in conjunction with plants (legumes for example). I have started Fava beans this year, and look forward to this plant adding nitrogen to the soil for subsequent crops to use. There are so many good things to say about Fava, and I still wonder why I have not grown them before!

There are three ways to add nitrogen to your garden:

1. Cover crops, especially nitrogen fixing crops
2. Adding compost and manures
3. Chemical fertilizers (ammonia compounds)

The first option seems to be the best. There are a lot of nice things to be said about manuers, but you may introduce new weed seeds to your garden. The least favorite of the three I put last. If not done properly, chemical fertilizers can sterilize your soil. The organic gardener wants to feed the micro organisms, which will in turn feed your crops. So take care when adding chemicals to your garden.

Following are some misc notes that for some reason I thought were earth shaking when I started this article some time ago:

There are 16 tablespoons per cup. Many commercial power fertilizers suggest using one tablespoon per gallon of water for fertilizing plants. In a 5 gallon bucket, this would be 5 T per bucket. To get ½ Tablespoon per gallon, put 2.5 T into a 5 gallon bucket.

So, did you do a soil test, and therefore do you know what your garden needs this year? Cheers for a fertile garden!


Resources

• Conversion tables for horticulture use (pdf)