Eat Carbon Credits or Carbon-based Foods?

We all have read or heard about Carbon Credits, and other Environmental Credits accruing to Big Business... but I don't really understand all the logic in them. If an industrial plant produces too many greenhouse gases, it seems they can simply buy carbon credits from someone doing a better job for the environment, and continue polluting. I think partly it's just another shell game in financial manipulation, because it surely hasn't improved the air quality, ozone layer, global warming and greenhouse gases that I can see. 

There's a lot of talk encouraging us all to reduce our "carbon footprint" (and some of us do) but somehow I don't think we will run out of carbon based fuels (wood, oil, coal and natural gas) before mankind makes it almost impossible to grow anything edible on this lovely blue planet. Human beings are carbon-based, and our foods are carbon-based. How does buying and selling carbon credits help us grow more and healthier foods and live a healthier life?

On the other hand, burying small bits of carbon (natural charcoal, NOT charcoal briquettes) in my garden certainly improves the health of the soil, and lately I see many more earthworms and other visible organisms. (I can't see the gazillion others without a microscope.) I'm also beginning to see more and healthier production in the very earliest beds I amended with biochar 5 years ago, and I finally feel like I'm getting to be a better steward. Bits of carbon in the soil sequester carbon dioxide, which plants need to grow and produce fruit, grain or flowers. Sometime back, I wrote a piece on Biochar for DavesGarden.com. Reading it will give you some background if biochar is unfamiliar to you.

Our nearby land grant university got a grant of several million dollars to build a pyrolysis unit to burn factory (CAFO) chicken house waste into biochar about 3-4 years ago. The problem for me is that the biochar they made was such fine powder that most of it blew away during the demonstration I saw, long before it could be incorporated into the topsoil (even on a day with very little breeze). Plus, it was dirty and nasty to breathe that black dust while it was being applied.

I have a wood burning stove as my back-up emergency heat, although I seldom need it much. The small bits of charred wood left among the ashes are filtered out later and scattered across my garden. (I break them up with a hammer if they are larger than a walnut, but it's dirty work.) Since I don't till anymore, I cover the bits with a thick layer of compost and within a year or two it all becomes part of the soil, loose and fertile. Eventually that soil will be many inches deep, rather than the scant layer of topsoil that hasn't washed into the creek over many, many years! I don't walk on much of my garden, so it's not compacted other than on the paths.

My House & Garden, Elephants and Blind Men

I'm sure you all have heard the story of the blind men and the elephant, but just in case... In various versions of the tale, a group of blind men (or men in the dark) touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one feels a different part, but only one part, such as the side, tail, leg or the tusk. They then compare notes and learn that they are in complete disagreement.

The point is that we reach different conclusions depending on our exposure to partial facts.

I have been struggling with designing a drainage system to address the runoff from the hillside behind my house all the way down across my garden areas and on to the creek. I have this personal experience to add to the design considerations:

Three years ago I did extensive work on my garden area, building fluffy raised wide rows between narrow compacted walkways, all perpendicular to the creek. I was careful to only walk on the pathways, but I could plant and manage the vegetables from a path on either side of each bed. By the second year the rows were barely above what had been the paths, and by the third year, non-existent. I don't know how much of the soil went into the creek as run-off, but probably a lot between runoff and flooding. I'm sure some soil was trapped in the 20 foot wide grass swath between the garden beds and the creek, but not much.

Secondly, I also know from my own experience with drainage on the place my mother owned that drainage ditches fill up, and so does buried perforated plastic drain pipe in a gravel-filled ditch. They can fill up in as little as 2-3 years.

I had decided that some terracing in the slope in back of this house, using a hugelkulture bed idea on the lower edge of each terrace might work better than drainage ditches. And it still might be the easiest thing to do.

Then last week I came across this series of videos, which made me realize I was the blind man observing only part of the elephant (the area just behind the house). Our steep woods run behind/above the house, and then run parallel with the ridge behind the next several houses along the road. It's steep, but there are 4WD cart paths running through some of it; access to the paths is limited and I don't have one of those fancy carts, so I've never been up there. I need to get the local forestry person here anyway to talk to me about woodland management.

The first video segment in the series (linked above) is just an over-view and I didn't learn anything much from it except reminding me of how the rivers in the US carry topsoil down to the Mississippi Delta. However, starting with the 2nd video and building on it in subsequent segments, I began to see and understand "my part of the elephant" in a whole new light as a whole elephant, and some things that can actually be done to help the drainage/runoff. 

There is at least one more spring on our property, behind the next house 1000' up the road. I've never seen it, and don't know what feeds it, but it's on the lower part of the hillside about 200' from the road. For all I know, there may be more springs. It's a lousy steward who doesn't know the land entrusted to her care!

I am hoping there might be state or federal money available for woodland management, which might include planting trees to replace what was timbered out before we bought this place, as well as management of water runoff. If nothing else, at least there should be forestry advice available.

Growing Healthier Greens

One of the best things you can add to your garden for growing superb greens is rock dust. Volcanic rock dust, if you can find it, otherwise any rock dust is better than none. (Rock dust is good for all plants in the garden, but especially the greens because it helps give structure to the leaves.)

"Adding volcanic dust mimics glacial cycles which naturally fertilized the land. Since the last ice age three million years ago the earth has gone through 25 similar glaciations, each lasting about 90,000 years. We are currently 10,000 years into an interglacial -- a hiatus between ice ages -- meaning modern soils are relatively barren and artificial fertilizers are needed." (Quote Source)

The addition of rock dust is usually called RE-mineralization, because our soils have become very depleted in minerals over time. (Plants take up minerals as they grow, some more than others, and normal fertilizing doesn't add all the minerals back in.) There are 17 essential plant nutrients; of those, hydrogen, carbon and oxygen are absorbed from the air, while the other essential nutrients (mostly minerals) and water must be obtained from the soil.

However, what really makes a garden work is all the bio-organisms that will convert any and all the nutrients to a form the plants can utilize (take-up via roots). All the nutrients in the world are useless unless they are in a form plants can use.

When we fertilize, we usually add the inorganic nutrients consisting of NPK or nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which are called primary nutrients because the plants use a LOT of them. (Bagged NPK doesn't include anything else but NPK and a filler.)

The secondary (mineral) nutrients are calcium, magnesium and sulfur. Those do not always need re-application every year, but they might, so get a soil sample! The third classification is micronutrients (it's what rock dust contains and needed only in small quantities)... more than 50-60 micro-minerals like boron, manganese, zinc, molybdenum, nickel, cobalt and more are available from some rock dust sources.

The colloidal carbonaceous residue known as humus serves as a nutrient reservoir. Besides lack of water and sunshine, nutrient deficiency is a major growth limiting factor.

There is some thought that the calcium and magnesium in the rock dust converts atmospheric carbon into carbonates... which would be essentially sequestering some carbon in the soil, if I understand it correctly.

Currently, I add 2 kinds of rock dust to my garden: Azomite, and Greensand which is mined in New Jersey. I also add biochar sifted from my woodstove ashes, which I inoculate with mild urea or compost tea. All of these components give the bio-organisms something to convert to nutrients for the plants. I know I probably don't build enough humus yet... that is: I don't add enough active organic matter... but this year I plan to use EM-1 (Effective Microorganisms) on my compost and also make Boshaki to continue growing effective microorganisms for my soil life.

But remember, it all starts with rock dust to feed the existing bio-organisms in my soil, which will feed the plants that will feed me.

Nutrient loss in Our Vegetables

A good friend recently sent me a note that there is a story in the current Mother Earth News concerning the serious decline of nutrients in vegetables. Loss of nutrients in vegetables isn't news to me because I have been long aware of the published (and hard to find) data by the USDA on the declining nutrients in crops since the 1950's/1960's. (I used to have the USDA chart on my computer, but I lost it when the last hard drive died, and now it is not easy to find.)

Several "causes" have been cited in the research literature, ranging from overall loss in our soil nutrients, to the specific varieties chosen to plant. It certainly appears true that veggies remove micronutrients from the soil which are never replaced by the additions of just the popular NPK.

However, the loss of nutrients by the "choice" of planted varieties has me stumped. From what I read, some varieties that are chosen to grow quickly with a minimum of amendments to the soil might indeed result in a great crop of pretty and marketable produce, but lacking on the nutrition scale. Personally I am more inclined to believe the soil deficiency idea.

In 2008 I wrote a post on DavesGarden called "red tennis balls" which listed some USDA stats on nutrient decline in tomatoes. Here's an excerpt:

Taking statistics from the USDA comparing a tomato in 1963 to a tomato now (2008) shows that 100 grams of 'fresh' tomato has:

30.7% LESS Vitamin A

16.9% LESS Vitamin C

61.5% LESS Calcium

11.1% LESS Phosphorus

9% LESS Potassium

9% LESS Niacin (B3)

10% LESS Iron

1% LESS Thiamine (B1)

65% MORE Lipids (fats)

200% MORE Sodium

Vitamins E and K are not measured, nor are essential micronutrients like molybdenum and selenium.

Broccoli has lost 45% Vitamin C.

80% of the tomatoes grown in Florida now comprise just 5 varieties, and one of those 5 counts  by itself for 35.9% of all tomatoes (the variety is Fla. 47).

In the last 50 years, the Canadian potato has lost 100% Vitamin A, and 57% Calcium, 50% Iron, 50% Riboflavin (B2) and 18% Thiamin.

So, its not just Red Tennis Balls that are nutritionally deficient...

I've been working on increasing nutrient density (measurements aka Brix, and also taste in the veggies... the better the taste, the higher the nutritional value) in my own garden for 4+ years now and I still don't have a good handle on it, although my results are getting better. I DO believe that sufficient micro-minerals, good compost and an excellant microbial population are a big part of the equation. I hope to have some increased positive reports this coming gardening season.

We Humans are 4% Minerals

Yep, that's right... this post is about the 4% of our bodies that are minerals, but a very important 4%!  It came about because someone asked me why I'm adding minerals (like Greensand and Azomite) to my new sheet-composted garden area.

96% of our human body is composed of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen... the other 4% of our body mass contains over 70 or more minerals, some in miniscule amounts and most of which are unfortunately no longer readily available in our soils. Without that mere 4%, we would die. 

Minerals participate in a multitude of bio-chemical processes necessary for the maintenance of health in human beings, animals and plants that inhabit our planet. There would be no life without minerals!

Minerals control literally millions of chemical and enzymatic processes which occur in the human body at all times. That alone should make us want to know more of the importance of minerals for our health and survival, and what to do about the current lack.

So What's the Big Deal about Adding Minerals to my Soil??

Simple. If the soil doesn't have the minerals, there's no way for vegetables to absorb them!

Consider: We no longer get as many minerals from our vegetables as we got 50 years ago. The nutritional value of modern foods isn't just declining, it's collapsing. We cannot live healthily without adequate minerals; they are the fundamental source and the basic building blocks of life.

Over-farming, soil depletion, commercial fertilizer, hybrid crops and genetic modifications are slashing the nutrients found in our fruits and vegetables. In fact, we'd have to eat 10 servings of spinach to get the same level of minerals as from just one serving about 50 years ago.

And that's only the beginning.
Take a look at the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) nutritional values for fruits and vegetables today compared to 1975.

Apples: Vitamin A is down 41%
Sweet Peppers: Vitamin C is down 31%
Watercress: Iron is down 88%
Broccoli: Calcium and Vitamin A are down 50%
Cauliflower: Vitamin C is down 45%; Vitamin B1 is down 48%; and Vitamin B2 is down 47%
Collard Greens: Vitamin A is down 45%; Potassium is down 60%; and Magnesium is down 85%

To be fair, some vegetables appear to be gaining vitamins, or at least vitamin A. Carrots, for example, have more of the vitamin now than they did in 1963. Why is a still a mystery. But the phenomenon has apparently occurred just in the nick of time. The National Academy of Sciences has issued an alert that it takes twice as many vegetables to get the daily requirement of vitamin A as previously thought. (Carrots and pumpkin are exempt from the caveat.)

Despite the apparent increase of vitamin A in carrots, most vegetables are losing their vitamins and minerals. Nearly half the calcium and vitamin A in broccoli, for example, has disappeared. Collards are not the greens they used to be. If you're eating them for minerals and vitamin A, be aware that the vitamin A content has fallen from 6500 IUs to 3800 IUs. Their potassium has dropped from from 400 mg to 170 mg. Magnesium has fallen sharply-57 mg to 9. Cauliflower has lost almost half its vitamin C, along with its thiamin and riboflavin. Most of the calcium in pineapple is gone... from 17 mg (per 100 grams raw) to 7. And the list goes on and on.

However, this is not just a 21st Century phenomena!
Back in 1936, a group of doctors introduced Document No.264 to the floor of the United States Senate. It was a dire warning that the mineral content of the soil was eroding. Vegetables were losing their power and people were at risk. Unfortunately Congress did nothing.

Today, it's worse; much worse. Minerals like iron and magnesium have dropped by more than 80 percent. That's from commercial farming technology and powerful fertilizers that practically sterilize the soil... leaving it with little to no mineral content. 

Commercial farming methods have depleted the soil of every essential nutrient, except NPK (nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous). Our planet's soil is being stripped of minerals, and generally nothing is being done to replace them.


Do we even eat enough vegetables?
No way. The preferred American meal is one-dish, already prepared. Unless a vegetable can be squirted out of a bottle, it’s a nonentity for too many of us. Why? We’re in a hurry. Vegetables are considered side dishes, and Americans don’t have time for such frivolity. The decline is relentless. Within the last 15 years, the percentage of all dinners that include a vegetable (other than salad or potatoes) dropped another 10%. It’s now 41%. (Data Source)

I haven't totally figured out the mineral thing yet in my garden, but I've been working on it going on 5 years now. (The Greensand and Azomite mainly add trace minerals rather than address the major ones like calcium, although they do contain some calcium.) Balanced soil minerals is very complex subject and I'm not convinced anyone has all the answers. For example, a mineral like calcium is one the microbes can/will eat and convert to plant food. We know the microbes make calcium available to plants, but which of the 5 or more forms of calcium should we put on our soils?

Until I can afford $150+ professional soil tests, I have to rely on what I can glean from my research and my gut intuition. My gut instinct tells me that adding trace mineral mixes like Greensand and Azomite has to help put some of that 4% of minerals back into my soil and thus into my vegetables.


My Thanks to Keith Scott-Mumby MD, PhD for the idea that sent me searching for more information on that 4% of our minerals.

"Too soon old, Too late smart"

Recently that phrase really hit home, via a gardening book of all things! Ack! Can you believe that?

The revelation hit me smack-dab head-on as I reached about page 100 of Toby Hemenway's book, Gaia's Garden. If I had been taught these very basic and logical fundamentals years ago, I would have a very different garden (and a very different mindset about a lot of other things long before now)... I'd have a garden that would be nearly 100% self-sustaining AND with such rich, balanced, living soil that it would supply almost all of my produce food needs, as well as sensual enjoyment of aromas and color in flowers! But I still couldn't grow olives and lemons here without a greenhouse...  :(

I was a little bit angry about the hindsight; maybe I still am a bit. Why isn't this stuff taught to everyone, and especially all school kids? Then I wondered if I was perhaps / maybe I was taught some of it in dribs and drabs (like in 8th grade biology, or freshman geology) but never connected the dots? Or is it just how Hemenway lays it all out together, so that it makes perfect sense?

Or is it like the old Zen saying goes, "When the student is ready, the teacher appears." ?

At any rate, this book is now helping me towards a new (and/or better) understanding and pathway to garden self-reliance and the connectedness of all things. To put it another way, it feels like (re)integrating myself back into the "real, natural world".

If I can only afford to buy ONE book in the next year or even five years, it will be this one! The paperback copy I am reading is on inter-library loan, and apparently well-read as it's pencil-marked, creased and tattered. I'm glad to see it has been used a LOT because it means others are on the same path!

(There will be some posts soon about implementing some of the book's ideas this fall. I suspect it will take 5 years for my garden to begin to function fully in this manner.)

Biochar Field Day

I have been using, and writing, about biochar for several years, and I think I am starting to see some improvements in my own garden. Recently I had the opportunity to attend the "Biochar Field Day" workshop in the next county south of me, and want to report what I found interesting.

Biochar has been around for 2500 years or more, but largely unnoticed until recently. Terra Preta de Indio (or Indian Black Earth) is a Pre-Columbian dark earth mass re-discovered in the Brazilian Amazon region and several other countries in South America a few years ago. The soil is incredibly fertile, and contains charcoal (biochar) that has been there almost forever. Even though Biochar has received a lot of interest in the last few years, there have been very few documented studies that I've seen. 

I was suitably impressed with this event, not just by their demonstrated results after 2 years of trials (which I expected), but by the the overall project. 

The Virginia Tech Biochar Trials, headed by Dr. Rory Maguire, has developed a working prototype pyrolysis unit that can convert 4,000 pounds of waste poultry litter a day into some useable products. 40% is captured as high-value pyloric oil suitable for many purposes, perhaps like a heating oil; 40% is converted to a powdery biochar useful to help increase soil fertility, and the remaining 20% is mostly bio-gas, used as part of the fuel for the machine.

The speakers included Dr. Maguire and a couple of his grad students, Dr. Julie Major of the International Biochar Initiative who came down from Montreal (Canada), and Dr. Allen Straw, our very knowledgeable area rep from the Virginia Extension Service. Half he trials were done on the farm of Anthony Flaccavento (Abingdon Organics) where the workshop was held, and the other trial on another field several miles away belonging to Dr. Richard Moyer, who is my favorite egg man at the Abingdon Farmers' Market.

I am really pleased to see someone is making something useful from commercial chicken house litter, rather than just a stinky dump pile. Since I know I personally wouldn't use chicken manure from a commercial operation on my garden, I asked about contaminates from the litter. Dr. Maguire said the temperatures of the pyrolysis unit are so high that it kills any organisms that are in the waste. I didn't ask about other contaminants like heavy metals that might be in the feed.

I crush the biochar I make to about pea-size to use in my garden; it is far less messy than the bucket of powdered biochar demonstrated at the workshop. When they transferred the biochar from one bucket to another, a large cloud of dense black particulates hovered, and a good bit was carried away with the wind. Applying that fine powder on a field would mean tilling it in immediately, and even then there would be considerable loss from the mechanical action and air movement.

Something else I do with my biochar that they did not, is to inoculate it. I started using some fresh urine, which has a urea content of about 3-4%, as an inoculate. (Commercial urea is about 40% and will burn plants.) It helps feed the soil microbes. Next year I plan to inoculate my biochar with some EM™ (living microbes) and probably some fish emulsion.

Some of the group were totally unfamiliar with biochar, and I described adding plain crushed biochar to my garden as 'salting the soil with condos for the microbes'... and when I add inoculated biochar, I'm adding 'condos fully furnished, and with food on the table'.

One lovely couple in attendance are hosting a 5-weekend Permaculture Certification Course next Spring (as part of their "Help Build Community Resilience" efforts) and have asked if I'd do a workshop on building an inexpensive backyard burner for making biochar. Of course I'm delighted!

Phosphorus in the Garden

Photo from benketaro's photostream

We are told it is hard to get enough available phosphorus into our garden soil, yet did you know it is also easy to get too much phosphorus?

Phosphorus is the "P" in NPK fertilizers, and plants need a lot of it to build proteins and to transfer energy within the plant's cells. There is a delicate balance necessary between nitrogen and phosphorus for both to be effective, and too much of either poses serious problems in the garden and in the environment.

Phosphorus is not very soluble and tends to be immobile in the soil instead of working with the nitrogen. Too much nitrogen gives you lush-looking tomato plants with no fruit, and nitrogen run-off also happens where there is excess nitrogen. The soil pH affects how easily or not the phosphorus can be altered into a form plants can use. When the soil is more acidic, the phosphorus is more easily broken down by microbes in the soil to a form the roots can take up into the plant.

Plants store phosphorus in the form of phytates in the bran and seeds, where it acts as a protective mechanism until time for the seeds to sprout. Many of those seeds become foods (and not necessarily good for us), although some seeds were always saved for planting another crop before Monsanto bought control of the seed market.

The human digestive systems lack the enzyme phytase which separates the phosphorus from the phytate molecule. We need phosphorus, just as plants do, but ingested phytates in beans and grains keep us from absorbing phosphorus and many other minerals unless we break them down before ingestion. (See my post on soaking grains and beans.)

Commercially raised non-ruminate livestock like pigs, chickens, turkeys, etc. are usually fed grains like maize (corn) and legumes like soybeans. They also cannot digest the phytates. When these non-ruminates eat seeds and beans (containing phytates) the unabsorbed phytate passes through the GI tract and elevates the amount of phosphorus in the manure.

If the bagged compost you buy has manure from non-ruminants, you can bet it probably has an excess of phosphorus. (If it's home-grown, and the non-ruminant farm animals are not fed grains and soy, you probably have great compost!) Excess phosphorus can kill off the mychorizzal-forming fungi who perform the process necessary for the plant's ability to absorb micronutrients; it also leads to eutrophication such as reduction in water quality and reduction of fish populations in our creeks, streams, lakes and rivers.

On the other hand, ruminates like cattle, goats, sheep, and deer with multiple stomachs are able to digest the phytates during the fermentation process that goes on within their stomachs (which includes chewing their "cud"). Their manure would be the better bet for compost as far as phosphorus content, if it is otherwise healthy.

Alert: You should never assume your garden needs NPK, or how much, without a soil test.
If you choose to be organic for yourself, your family, and the planet, as I do, there are many choices better than commercial chemical fertilizers. Chemical fertilizers are salts, and salts sterilize the soil... sometimes little by little, but ultimately chemically fertilized soil is mostly dead soil.

If your garden needs phosphorus, you can buy bone meal, acidulated or ground bone, depending on your needs and local availability. Bone meal can contain anywhere from 20 to 30 percent phosphorus, determined by whether the bones were steamed or not.

You could also use rock phosphate if your soil needs phosphorus; however rock phosphate takes a long time to break down when soils are more alkaline than acidic. I use soft rock phosphate in the form of CalPhos if I need phosphate because the plants can immediately use it. It's also great to put on the compost pile if you need phosphorus.

Again, be safe and have a soil test done!

Miracle-Gro?

 Photo from seantoyer's photostream

Scotts is the owner of Miracle-Gro, and the SOLE licensed US distributor of Monsanto's RoundUp.

Below is a copy of a post I made on a gardening forum years ago; the article was originally published in Organic Gardening magazine July/August 2000.

"Miracle-Gro is a synthetic fertilizer that contains ammonium phosphate and several other chemicals that can be toxic to your soil and plants.

It is prohibited from use in certified-organic farming.

Here’s what soil expert Robert Parnes, Ph.D., says in his book Fertile Soil: [Ammonium fertilizer] acidifies the soil, and thus it is probably more harmful to soil organisms than any other nitrogen fertilizer. The application has to be timed carefully and placed properly to avoid burning the leaves and roots.

In addition, ammonium tends to inhibit the release of potassium. Ammonium fertilizers are deliberately manufactured to be spread at high application rates in order to obtain maximum yields with no regard to adverse effects on the soil.

Probably nowhere is the conflict between the mass production of food to feed the world and the preservation of the soil more obvious than in the confrontation over the use of either ammonium fertilizers or liquid ammonia. [editor's note: Now, 10 years later, it's probably glyphosate, aka RoundUp.]

And there’s more: long-term studies at the University of Wisconsin have shown that acidic chemical fertilizers are causing serious, permanent damage to our soils. Usually these fertilizers are also highly soluble, so they leach away and pollute our water systems, too.

Soil fertility authority Garn Wallace, Ph.D., of Wallace Laboratories in El Segundo, California, points out that Miracle-Gro contains muriate of potash, which contains excess chlorine that will burn plants and inhibit the uptake of nitrogen.

Dr. Wallace also warns that products such as Miracle-Gro often contain unsafe levels of zinc and copper that will be toxic to soil life.

And if all that’s not enough to convince you to avoid this stuff, consider this: you have to mix Miracle-Gro with water and apply it ever '7 to 14 days.'

If you opt to fertilize organically, on the other hand, all you have to do is mix a ½-inch layer of grass clippings into your beds before each crop. As the grass decomposes, it will improve your soil’s texture and stimulate microbial life and help prevent disease, all while releasing plenty of nutrients to feed your plants."

--KATHY BAUMGARTNER, Fremont, Michigan

"Real Gardeners Grow Without Miracles!"

Making a Nutritious Soil Planting Mix

 Photo from normanack's photostream

This recipe (from Nourishment Homegrown) will supply the proper nutrient mix for flowers to veggies, and it's easy to make.

Mix together 1 cubic foot of sand and 1 cubic foot of well-aged compost or aged sawdust. (Do not use pine sawdust.)

Mix together:

6 tablespoons High Calcium Lime

3 tablespoons Calcium Sulfate (Gypsum)

5 tablespoons Soft Rock Phosphate

1 tablespoon Kelp powder

1/2 teaspoon Copper Sulfate

1/2 teaspoon Iron Sulfate

1 teaspoon of Side Dressing (see below)

Mix well, add to the sand/compost mix and distribute evenly and thoroughly.

In a separate container, mix:

1/2 cup Fish Emulsion

1 pint food-grade Molasses

3-1/2 quarts water. You will use this mix to moisten the above dry mix, but do not add it all in at once.

To test for proper moisture level in the mix, make a golf ball size ball in your fist. If it will not stick together, the mix is too dry. To test for the mix being too wet, drop the ball from waist-high onto a hard surface like a sidewalk or driveway. If the ball splats but does not break apart it is too wet. If the ball does break apart, the moisture level is okay. You may need to add water if you have used all the moisture mix and it is still too dry.

Let this 'soil' sit for 14 days, and mix it a couple of times during the 14 days. Then it is ready to be used as a high quality general planting mix for any type of gardening.

Side Dressing by definition refers to a synthetic fertilizer that contains the full complement of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium. You should have a soil test done to see if you have an abundance of any of those nutrients before applying this mix. If, for example, you have an abundance of potassium, you'd leave it out of the mix. (Note: A Top Dressing by definition contains no phosphate.)

Mix only what you will use immediately. Any unused will harden like a rock.

Side Dressing, equal parts by weight: (Start with 2 pounds of each to see how far it will go.)

Ammonium Sulfate

Single Superphosphate

Potassium Sulfate

To increase effectiveness of the side dressing, add 3 pounds granulated sugar (which is carbon source) to the 6 pound mix above. The sugar will hold the fertilizers in the top active layer of the soil for a longer period, and the carbon in the sugar will pick up moisture and hold it to improve microbe activity in the plant root zone.

Using from 1 to 20 pounds of side dressing per 1,000 square feet of garden area can be very effective in nourishing the plants.

I'm Thinking Gardening...

Last year I became so disgusted at the weather impact on my garden that I vowed NOT to do another garden this year. However, as time rolls around and the catalogs roll in, I seem to be wavering.

Right now, and whether I put in a garden or not, I'm working on how to make an inexpensive biochar crusher. I'm convinced biochar that's been inoculated with beneficial microbes is the best thing next to homemade bread hot from the oven. The problem isn't making biochar, it is in getting it crushed small enough for distribution in my garden.

The charcoal bits remaining in the ashes from my wood stove are 75% perfectly sized, but not many folks have a wood stove anymore. Last year one of my gardening friends up the road crushed some Cowboy Charcoal (which you can buy at Lowe's and is pure biochar) with the help of her husband and son, and said it was a messy and dirty business.

Biochar is easily made by burning any organic matter (sticks, deadfall, tree trimmings, even green plant material) in a drum; the trick is to char it thoroughly rather than burn it to pure ash. Another consideration in making biochar is controling the gases given off in burning rather than adding them to the atmosphere. The optimal idea is to capture the gases and recycle them back under the drum as fuel; that's called a retort.

I have several ideas about making a crusher, but I want to do it cheaply. The roller mills made for crushing feed would do the job but they are hundreds of dollars to purchase. The home grain grinders the beer hobbyists use to crush the grains look like they would grind too small; fine for mash but maybe not biochar.

This project probably won't make much progress until it gets warm enough for me to spend some time working outside. I'll post any progress.

I LOVE Blueberries, but....

I love blueberries, but...there's a catch.

I love blueberries so much that I bought a few plants last spring and plan to buy more this upcoming spring. It is a challenge to grow my own blueberries because my soil here is not nearly acidic enough, but I'm working on lowering the pH with sulfur.

Blueberries are readily grown within 50-100 miles of here because most of the mountain soil is great for acid-loving plants like blueberries and rhododendrons. This past summer I went to a couple of U-Pick blueberry farms and picked several gallons of blueberries that I froze.

My favorite way to eat blueberries is to drop a handful of slightly-thawed berries onto a bowl of plain yogurt. It's a tasty treat for me, and I do it often. I labored under the delusion of a side benefit for me besides the taste: fresh (or frozen) blueberries are known to be great antioxidant powerhouses, destroying the free radicals in our systems that contribute to many health problems like macular degeneration as we age. They also fight high cholesterol, cataracts, glaucoma, varicose veins, hemorrhoids, peptic ulcers, heart disease and cancer.

Now a new study reported in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine shows that blueberries lose their power when eaten with a protein, including milk or milk products. The study assessed the bioavailability of phenolics after consumption of blueberries with and without milk. (Phenolics are the active compounds in plants that give blueberries their antioxidant potential.)

Their suggestion is to eat high antioxident fruits 1 hour before ingesting protein, or 2 hours afterwards. In fact, the general health suggestions across the web are to eat 3 servings of fresh fruits every day... blueberries just happen to top the list of fruits highest in antioxidants. By the way, the antioxidant properties in fruits are destroyed by heating, thus blueberry muffins are merely tasty but do not offer the health benefits of fresh or frozen berries.

Sigh. There goes my favorite snack of blueberries and yogurt unless I don't care about any health benefits.

A Course I'd Love to Take!

The Soil Food Web and Compost Technologies Workshop is being offered in Santa Barbara, California Oct. 30-Nov.1.

This is the short blurb about the course:

"In this course, you'll look at the elements of a healthy soil food web, learn how to analyze and improve your own soil, and learn how to make composts and extracts to strengthen the soil food web. The Soil Food Web course provides knowledge and research findings for those at the grass roots level of working with soils. That includes not just farmers who grow crops, but also those who graze cattle, sheep and other livestock, fruit and vegetable growers, greens keepers, parks and gardens workers, nursery operators - in fact, anyone who grows things. The course offers a way of improving the soils we work with now and a way to keep soils in this healthier state without damaging any other eco-system."

I have been convinced for a long time that the soil food web is key to growing healthy, nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately my own garden isn't making the progress I want, at least so far. This course would be very beneficial. Hmmmm, I wonder if I can wave my magic wand and Poof! be there in an instant?

I learned something today about Lead in soil

In following the bits and pieces relating to the story about lead in the White House Garden from sewage sludge applied years ago, I learned 2 things about lead in the soil.

One is that when the soil pH is adjusted to between 6.5 and 7, any lead in the soil is unavailable to plants. Secondly, I learned that adding 1/3 by volume of organic matter to the WH Garden before planting this year, they were able to reduce the lead amounts from 93 ppm to 14 ppm. Even the 93 ppm was well below what the EPA allows as safe, 400 ppm.

The amendments added to the WH garden were greensand, crab meal, compost from the National Park Service, and lime.

Other organic amendments to use on home gardens are composted leaves, non-acid peat, and well-rotted manure. Leaves should not be gathered from along highways and city streets in order to prevent lead contamination.

Building and Feeding Healthy Soil, Part 3

How much and how often is it necessary to feed soil organisms?

The answer is like the answer to the question “how much does it cost to grocery shop”? It depends. “How many people are you feeding? Are you buying ground beef or filet mignon?” As soil organisms become active in greater numbers, they will eat more. Two inches of mulch may stay on top of poor soils for a year or more, but in healthy soils it sure won’t. The more the soil organisms eat of the right stuff, the larger and healthier the plants will grow and fruit.

I find that each year is different in what I need to add, and when. I continually add green manure all growing season. Since my beds are mostly raised rows, I constantly put all trimmed plant material and plants that have finished for the season directly on the paths, and cover with a layer of dirt. By the end of the summer, it has been nearly all broken down by the microbes.

In Part One, I said most soil organisms eat things containing carbon. In what is known as the carbon cycle, plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and use it, combined with water they get from the soil, in the symbiotic process with the soil organisms to make substances they need for growth. The process of photosynthesis incorporates the carbon atoms from carbon dioxide into sugars that feed the soil organisms, although the plants themselves use some of it in the complexity of protein production.

Animals (I’ll use chicken here as an example) and humans eat the plants (such as cracked corn and greens the chickens eat), and use the carbon to build their own tissues. Animals, such as a fox (or humans), eat the chicken and then use the carbon for their own body needs. Animals (and humans) that have eaten the chicken and its carbon, now return carbon dioxide into the air when they (we) breathe, and also when they die, since the carbon is returned to the soil during decomposition (except in societies who entomb their dead in sealed compartments).

The carbon atoms in soil may then be used in a new plant, or by small microorganisms, and the carbon dioxide exhaled by animals gets recycled by new plants absorbing it for photosynthesis.

I jump-start the carbon cycle in a new garden area by adding biochar to my soil. Biochar is simply small bits of charred (not burned) plant material, including mature plant parts like firewood, and is often “inoculated” with some food source for the soil organisms. Fresh human urine works well as an inoculant. It is sterile, and contains 2-5% organic nitrogen, which doesn’t burn plants like commercial urea (man-made/chemical nitrogen) containing 45% nitrogen, found in farm/garden supply stores. Think of biochar as fully-equipped condos for the microbes.

You can also use a compost tea with some added molasses to inoculate biochar. The biochar I use is bits of charred wood left in the ashes of my wood stove. I sift them from the ash, and pulverize the bigger pieces into pea-size bits before inoculating than and incorporating them into my garden soil.

Biochar is a lengthy topic all by itself, and I will write a more detailed separate post on biochar soon. However, let me mention here not to use left-over bits of charcoal briquettes like those used for cookouts. They contain some nasty additives that are not good for the soil organisms.

Stay tuned for Part Four

Building and Feeding Healthy Soil, Part Two

One of the primary roles of microorganisms in soil is to decompose organic compounds so the plants can utilize them. In fact, most of the nutrient (fertilizing) components we apply to our gardens cannot be used by plants as is, straight out of the bag or the compost pile. It’s the teeny-tiny soil organisms that do the real ‘conversion’ work!

The relationship between plants and microbes is called symbosis ("the living together of unlike organisms"). A symbiotic relationship may be categorized as being mutualistic (both benefit), parasitic (one benefits, one suffers), or commensal (one benefits, no gain or loss for the other). In the case of the mycorrhizae, their symbiotic relationship with plants is mutualistic (both benefit).

As discussed in Part One, plants make energy via photosynthesis; they then chemically convert that energy into food at the root zone for microbes. Mychorrhizae, in their mutualistic symbiotic relationship with plants, “fix” nitrogen, which the plants use for growth. Different soil microorganisms digest and convert other nutrients necessary for healthy plants.

So, how do you get a good soil organism start in your garden if it is barren? Microorganisms are everywhere… on plants, in the dirt, in the air and on our skin. Soil organisms are rarely completely killed off, but in poor soil they dwindle, become dormant and unproductive. You can ‘awaken’ these dormant organisms with food, and you can add new soil organisms several ways including incorporating green manure and compost (which contain both living organisms and a food supply). If you plant a legume cover crop and incorporate it into the soil when it matures, it will add both food, and the organisms living on and in it.

Products like worm castings add some soil organisms, although they add more in the way of food. Some of the expensive liquid products contain live cultures. Just remember, you must feed the soil organisms, especially if there are no or few plants to feed them. (Seedlings don’t count; they are too small to give off any food in their roots.)

What do you feed the soil organisms? Many folks use a manure or compost tea with added molasses to supply the sugars to jump-start the soil organisms. Some make their own EM tea (search for Efficient Microbe information online). Teas can be used as a foliar spray or a drench, but foliar sprays are faster-acting. Compost and green manures add carbon-based foods.

Another benefit of adding compost is that it creates small air pockets in the soil, and beneficial (aerobic) organisms need oxygen as well as food, provided in a moist (but not saturated) soil. As the soil organisms break down compost for food, it becomes humus. Humus provides tilth, breaking up compaction.

You need to also feed the microorganisms some minerals. Most cultivated soils tend to be deficient in minerals (including trace minerals), because the minerals have been taken up by plants and not replaced. Applying fertilizers like NPK doesn’t add a full spectrum of minerals back into the soil, and may be adding too much nitrogen that soon becomes run-off. Soil organisms need trace minerals along with food and oxygen to grow and multiply.

With a good, balanced food supply, one bacterium is capable of producing 16 million more in just 24 hours. (They simply divide, providing conditions are favorable.)

Stay tuned for Part Three, coming soon.

Building and Feeding Healthy Soil, Part One of Four

All gardeners know healthy plants start with healthy soil, but not all gardeners know everything it takes to really make the soil healthy. I certainly don’t, but here’s a start. If you ask that question, most gardeners will say “compost”, sometimes without understanding exactly everything compost really does in the soil, other than loosen the soil and probably add some fertilizer.

But, oh my, healthy soil is so much more than just dirt with lots of compost! If your soil has any organic material in it, you probably see a few earthworms when you dig. You might also see a few other critters like centipedes, larvae, and who knows what else… but the vitally important ‘work-horse” life that builds and maintains healthy soil is seldom seen unless you have a microscope. These small critters (microorganisms) are bacteria, mites, nematodes, fungi, yeasts, molds, protozoa... and they are present in soils in astounding numbers!

The top several inches in a square foot of good garden soil may hold 50 earthworms, but a mere teaspoon of good, healthy soil may contain a billion bacteria, several thousand protozoa, a few dozen nematodes and many yards of almost invisible fungal hyphae (thread-like filaments). All living things, including soil organisms, must eat to survive. If soil organisms have the right things to eat, they make healthy soil, which feeds the plants, which then feed us.

What do these critters eat? Well, some eat chemicals like sulfur and nitrogen, and others eat things containing carbon… such as organic plant material (wood chips, leaves, green manure, and compost), waste products from other organisms (microscopic size to very large sizes like a horse), and sometimes they eat each other.

Now, here’s a catch… (isn’t there always a catch?). If we feed a human being a diet consisting solely of hamburgers, fries and sodas, they will live, and will have some energy. But sooner or later, their vitality will wane because they haven’t consumed a well-balanced diet containing ALL the nutrients needed for building and maintaining full health. Plus, you cannot feed a human just every now and then and still expect healthy vitality. The same is true for soil life. They need a constant supply of good nutrients in balance, and just adding compost and NPK doesn’t cut it.

By a neat action of Grand Design, plants provide much of the food the critters need. Plants do this through photosynthesis, producing energy in the leaves. This energy is converted to chemicals the plants give off in their root area (which is called the rhizosphere and is the tiny space immediately surrounding the roots). These chemicals are mostly carbs (which include sugars such as glucose and sucrose), amino acids, proteins, water and minerals, which attract and feed beneficial microbes.

The other neat action of Grand Design is that the waste products given off by the soil organisms are the very things the plants need (and in the right form to take up by the roots)… nutrients like minerals, vitamins, and nitrogen. For an example: plants may not be able to take up phosphate ions that are locked up in soils. The mycelium (the thread-like part) of the mycorrhizal fungus can process the phosphorus and make it available to the plants. (Mycorrhizae are especially beneficial for their plant partner in nutrient-poor soils.) Some microbes are able to “fix” nitrogen from the air and make it available to plants. These are often bacteria, blue-green algae and mycorrhizae/

Stay tuned for Part Two, coming soon.