In article ,
Jan Flora wrote:

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

Jan,
you said the frost goes pretty deep there. Do you still have earthworms?
I mulched pretty good at the end of last year and this has been the best
year for my soil. I believe one of posters in this NG (simy1) was
saying that he mulched and when he wanted to plant he pulled the mulch
aside and planted. Got the feeling that he was in a permanent state of
mulching and side dressing. It should do wonders for the worms. That's
where my gardening is going until I feel the need to make a change of
course. This turning the soil every year is a young guy's game. Time to
turn to technique instead of brawn.

I added "Teaming With Microbes," by Jeff Lowenfels to my back log of
books. When it comes in, I think I'll need it. I just started a new one
about people's general lack of interest in genocide. Seems like I spend
too much time looking at the beast when I should be concentrating on the
strawberry. But, I guess that is what this book is about.

Have a good day mucking about.

- Billy