In article , Charlie wrote:

On Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:45:40 -0900, Jan Flora wrote:

In article ,
Homer wrote:

This is the first year that I have planted brandywine.
The plants are turning purple... is this normal?

The plants need phosphorus. Fertilize them with a
"high middle number" fertilizer. Like an 8-32-16 or
something.

If you're trying to be organic, bonemeal is the
middle number organic source, but I don't know
how fast a plant can uptake it...

Jan

Rock phosphate powder supposedly has a quick uptake, but yet is
released long term as the plant needs it.


http://www.yardener.com/RockPhosphatebyEspoma.html

Care
charlie

Huh. The more I learn about this stuff, the more I realize
that I don't know squat. I'm just learning about soil microbes
and stuff.

Decided not to till this year -- just kept my old mounded beds
from last year, dug holes for each plant, put a handful of
composted cow manure and a tiny bit of prilled lime in each hole
and planted. So far, the little plants are looking *really* happy.

My neighbor, the Goddess of Organic Gardening and a founding
mother of our local Farmers Market, just gave me a 50# sack
of codfish bonemeal that got wet. The bonemeal clumped, so I'll
have to smash it into powder again.

She said that our young, glacial soils are way deficient in
phosphorus, so to use 5# per 100' row of bonemeal! (That's a
LOT, sports fans.) Where we live was buried under 100' of
ice as recently as 8,000-10,000 years before present. In
geologic time, that's yesterday. Or late last night.

Look for this book: "Teaming With Microbes," by Jeff Lowenfels.
It's expensive, so see if your library has it. If not, ask them
to buy it. Or ILL it. (Interlibrary loan.)

Jan

--
Bedouin proverb: If you have no troubles, buy a goat.