You seem to have friends in high places, boy. Pull up a chair.
Having a hard time finding consistency in agriculture (gardening,
farming)? Welcome to the club. "Man proposes, God disposes", pretty well
sums it up.
Let's look again at what Rob said.
"Tim, here is my simplistic view on using fertilisers - synthetic and
natural. I figured out a while ago that humus and organic matter in my
soil is good for it. Stripping away the humus was bad for my soil.
Therefore, I practise putting organic matter in to my gardens. I use
composted manure, compost or mulch. Bunging that stuff on my garden
improves my soil over time, but also beneifcally adds nutrients in a
soil friendly manner which are released in a controlled and time
released way. Therefore, I concluded, as long as I am adding organic
matter tom my soil, the plants will get fed in the process. Ipso facto,
why bother adding extra fertiliser. To date my veges have done nicely
following this line of reasoning. They are not the largest and fastest
growing, but they are healthy and aboput right size for me & the family,
and they taste good. If I look after my soil, my veges look after me."
- Rob
If you don't want the smell of manure around, you might try dropping a
small fish into your container before planting, or you could try hair
(human, dog, cat, whatever). Organic fish emulsion is handy and easy.
You could plant pulse cover crops in your containers over the winter.
They will have recharged your pots by spring planting. You could even
bury meat scraps in your containers, over the winter.
If that doesn't satisfy you look at
Organic Fertilizers
http://www.ext.vt.edu/departments/en...rtilizer/jan89
pr6.html
.. . . Compared to synthetic fertilizer formulations,organic fertilizers
contain relatively low concentrations of actual nutrients, but they
perform important functions which the synthetic formulations do not.
They increase the organic content and consequently the water-holding
capacity of the soil. They improve the physical structure of the soil
which allows more air to get to plant roots. Where organic sources are
used for fertilizer, bacterial and fungal activity increases in the
soil. Mycorrhizal fungi which make other nutrients more available to
plants thrive in soil where the organic matter content is high.
Organically derived plant nutrients are slow to leach from the soil
making them less likely to contribute to water pollution than synthetic
fertilizers.
(Excerpted from The Virginia Gardener Handbook, Diane Relf, Editor.)
On the note of mycorrhizal fungi ( mycorrhizal*inoculants).
Mycorrhizae is the relationship between roots and the fungi....
"They are a must if you are starting stuff in pots. They are a must if
your garden and yard have had the chemical treatment, rototilled,
compacted or water logged. *After a year or so, they are not needed,
except for things grown in pots or unless there has been the damage
described above."
- Jeff Lowenfeld, co-author of
Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web
Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis
http://www.amazon.com/Teaming-Microb.../dp/0881927775
/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206815176&sr= 1-1
Then there are commercial preparations, for example
http://www.extremelygreen.com/fertilizerguide.cfm
Three books that I would consider essential for any gardener to read
would be Jeff's and Wayne's book above.
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
http://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dile...ls/dp/01430385
83/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206815576&sr=1-1
and
"How to Grow More Vegetables" by John Jeavons
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/...=search-alias%
3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=How+to+Grow+More+Vegetables&x=0&y=0
For a perspective on insecticides see:
American Pests: The Losing War on Insects from Colonial Times to DDT
by James E. McWilliams
http://www.amazon.com/American-Pests...l/dp/023113942
X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238975011&sr=1-1
OK, enough chin wagging. The following are taken from "The Omnivore's
Dilemma" which is cited above.
-------
p. 145 - 6
When you add together the natural gas in the fertilizer to the fossil
fuels it takes to make the pesticides, drive the tractors, and harvest,
dry, and transport the corn, you find that every bushel of industrial
corn requires the equivalent of between a quarter and a third of a
gallon of oil to grow it-or around fifty gallons of oil per acre of
corn. (Some estimates are much higher.) Put another way, it takes more
than a calorie of fossil fuel energy to produce a calorie of food;
before the advent of chemical fertilizer the Naylor farm produced more
than two calories of food energy for every calorie of energy invested.
---------
p.165
To provide fertility‹the farm's biggest expense‹compost is trucked in;
some crops also receive fish emulsion along with their water and a side
dressing of pelleted chicken manure. Over the winter a cover crop of
legumes is planted to build up nitrogen in the soil.
Harsh chemicals can scorch young leaves, and nitrogen fertilizers render
lettuces (and other plants) more vulnerable to insects. It seems the
bugs are attracted to the free nitrogen in their leaves, and because of
the more rapid growth of chemically nourished plants, insects find their
leaves easier to pierce.
-----
p.179
A study by University of California-Davis researchers published in the
Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry in 2003 described an
experiment in which identical varieties of corn, strawberries, and
blackberries grown in neighboring plots using different methods
(including organically and conventionally) were compared for levels of
vitamins and polyphenols. Polyphenols are a group of secondary
metabolites manufactured by plants that we've recently learned play an
important role in human health and nutrition. Many are potent
antioxidants; some play a role in preventing or fighting cancer; others
exhibit antimicrobial properties. The Davis researchers found that
organic and otherwise sustainably grown fruits and vegetables contained
significantly higher levels of both ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and a wide
range of polyphenols. . .
.. . . Why in the world should organically grown blackberries or corn
contain significantly more of these compounds? The authors of Davis
study haven't settled the question, but they offer two suggest theories.
The reason plants produce these compounds in the first place is to
defend themselves against pests and diseases; the more pressure from
pathogens, the more polyphenols a plant will produce. These compounds,
then, are the products of natural selection and, more specifically, the
coevolutionary relationship between plants and the species that prey on
them. Who would have guessed that humans evolved to profit from a diet
of these plant pesticides? Or that we would invent an agriculture that
then deprived us of them? The Davis authors hypothesize that plants
being defended by man-made pesticides don't need to work as hard to make
their own polyphenol pesticides. Coddled by us and our chemicals, the
plants see no reason to invest their sources in mounting a strong
defense.
------
OK, study-up. There will be a test at the end of the week.
------
On a personal note, what have been your most informative container
gardening sites?
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.
Oscar Wilde
In article ,
Tim wrote:
But you raised a good point in "taste".
Tim, here is my simplistic view on using fertilisers - synthetic and
natural. I figured out a while ago that humus and organic matter in my
soil is good for it. Stripping away the humus was bad for my soil.
Therefore, I practise putting organic matter in to my gardens. I use
composted manure, compost or mulch. Bunging that stuff on my garden
improves my soil over time, but also beneifcally adds nutrients in a
soil friendly manner which are released in a controlled and time
released way. Therefore, I concluded, as long as I am adding organic
matter tom my soil, the plants will get fed in the process. Ipso facto,
why bother adding extra fertiliser. To date my veges have done nicely
following this line of reasoning. They are not the largest and fastest
growing, but they are healthy and aboput right size for me & the family,
and they taste good. If I look after my soil, my veges look after me.
rob
Thank you all for your posts.
I think perhaps I may have come across different than I intended, as I
am aware of most of what is being posted here. In other threads, I've
stated before that I *used* to grow in raised beds, had a mulch pile,
etc...and never used duck chemfer....Had great plants.
When I had to switch to containers, I first started to make my own soil,
and included much organic material in the pots, as that was what I was
used too. Results became sporadic, both in varieties that grew well,
as well as years that would differ. I played with the mix of my soil,
with mixed results. Nothing consistent.
See, I don't view this as a "political", or "green" thing, but one of
consistency.
What I have learned just having inet connectivity restored after years
is that the eco-systems of containers is vastly different than land
based eco-systems. ie, what works great in the ground, may not work
in a container. Now, having read many posts from container specific
sites, everyone else has the same problem, that try the organic approach.
Looking at sites that sell organic material, one finds that the majority
of fertilizers are in need of microbes and other critters to make the
organic fert inorganic so the plant can use it. That, I think is the
problem for organic container gardeners, some time you have the
critters, some times you don't.
Heck, even the temp of the growing medium makes a difference. To high
or low, the critters don't work as well, or may die off.
Wow, this is long, sorry. The bottom line seems to be one of
consistency. The best results for most 'weekend' gardeners, seems to be
a mixture of the two worlds, at least with containers.
--
Tim
--
- Billy
"For the first time in the history of the world, every human being
is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the
moment of conception until death." - Rachel Carson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI29wVQN8Go
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072040.html