Some said this video recording was n’t proper fertilizing :
Many took law-breaking at my use of 10 - 10 - 10 , which I realise . Sure , it ’s not “ proper fertilizing , ” if you ’re an organic gardener . And it ’s not mainstream permaculture , either .
Here ’s the job : many people will deposit to their constitutional guns at all costs which mean they lose sight of the goal .
What goal ?
food for thought !
If you need intellectual nourishment , which we all do , and you desire it to grow in your yard , taking the EVIL CHEMICAL option is better than letting things die in the George Sand while adhere to your principles .
Most of the time , though , you wo n’t have to burst out the 10 - 10 - 10 . And I ’m going to take that tack today and indicate thatyou can fertilise everything without going to the store for chemical .
In the case of the South Florida garden in the video recording , I was visiting household and they had very little useable that I could use in the short period of fourth dimension I was there so I went with the “ let ’s save these plant before they die as stunt little matter ” option .
If you learn yesterday ’s C. W. Post based on the contact I received from H. D. , you saw these picture :
Does anything stand out to you in those photos ?
Two things are there that I point out forthwith :
Patchy grit and pine tree tree .
Both are unremarkably indicator of less - than - perfect soil for horticulture and orchards . When even the weeds are n’t felicitous , cultivated tree and shrubs need more love than might be the instance in someplace rich .
When I helped Dad createThe Great South Florida Food Forest Project , we piled up all the yard “ waste ” around all the tree , bend moxie into crumbly disastrous compost - enriched grease in a matter of months :
So , what ’s a gal supposed to do when she has a ton of quad and a spacious range of species to fertilise ?
permit ’s jump in .
Mulch and Microbes
H. D. write in a keep abreast - up email : “ All of my plants are in dire need of more love . I contrive to start fertilizing them asap . ”
After tearing , fertilizing is the next most crucial part of getting your grove established .
My K in North Florida was much like hers . It was a patchy , weedy , pasture - like expanse of stickers and grass . I used chemical fertilizer because I was so defeated … and little happened . It may have been “ proper fertilizing ” by the modernistic farming book but there was something still leave out .
The biggest change chance for my trees when I mulched them all hard with the mulch from a tree company that was clearing the lines along our road .
I ’m starting to see that the fungi and bacteria in the soil are at least as important as the minerals we total . A wood stay green and well-chosen without any fertilizer being applied . All of the organic matter that is fall to the priming is utilized first by micro-organism and then reabsorbed by the root of works .
I would give each one of those tree diagram a foot of mulch around them , at least up to 4′ out from the automobile trunk of each one . A swelled hoop .
Do this after a really good rain or after you hook the ground , then water that mulch in really well as well . Adding some handfuls of leaf mould meet from around the base of happy tree diagram in the nearby woods is a good idea as well . sparge it around the trees , water , then mulch straight off so it does n’t dry out . There are kinship find between trees , fungi and bacterium that we hardly interpret . make tree growing in pasture takes fourth dimension but it ’s startle - started by the invigoration of the soil around them with the type of organisms that live in harmony with trees .
Think of it like eating live solid food , such as yogurt , kombucha , homemade vinegar or sauerkraut . The organism in those foods make your intestine healthy . A wide grunge entanglement makes your trees healthy and helps them “ digest ” the nutrients that are available .
I ’m really experimenting right nowwith this methodof culture microbes and will send more on it tomorrow .
Check out the video I just post :
Mulch as Fertilizer
In my bookCompost Everything : The Good Guide to Extreme Composting(now available in audiobook , by the way ) , I have a chapter on growing your own compost .
I view mulch as both a masking for the ground and a fertilizer , which is why I care to mulch with fabric that are organic and do not take a super - long clock time to break down . A mix of metal money , as find in tree company mulch , is great . It might have pine , oak , gelt palms , vine , bay tree diagram and who knows what other mintage . Hard and soft woods , magnanimous and belittled pieces , unlike plant with different mineral contents : this is nifty for nutrition , worms , fungus kingdom and your trees .
Even just letting patches of weeds and grass raise , then chop them down and throwing them around the base of your Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree is GREAT !
I growMexican sunflowersfor this reason , allow them grow big , then cutting them down , then letting them grow back again . All the chop pieces are throw around my fruit tree diagram and act as a year - round of drinks slow liberation fertilizer . you’re able to see me doing this in my filmCompost Everything : The Movie , in which I demonstrate and talk about many of the methods I share in my book .
industrial plant work severely to grab what they require from the territory . When they farm tumid , you could just cut them down and tip them to your tree . A perfectly cut and tended lawn is n’t good for garner this kind of biomass , but tall pot and forests are .
So – lesson one for get trees going : mulch ! ! !
Feeding Faster
When trees and shrubs really attend like they necessitate a pick - me - up , or if you ’re just get a organization start , as H. D. is , it ’s clock time to pull out the big gas .
My favorite path to give trees , shrubs and garden is with a big barrel of fluid anaerobiotic compost fertilizer .
You canread more about my “ formula ” in this post .
I put barrels near where I ’d like to feed plants and have them sit down out in the field , exceed off with water and Modern ingredients as needed .
Manure , compost , piddle , fish , seaweed and Epsom salt make for incredible fertilizing powerfulness . Make it and pour it around your trees , decent into the mulch , then see what bump .
Some Final Thoughts on Proper Fertilizing
Though you may fertilise your tree and green them up , there ’s always the possibility that there are still some micronutrients overleap . This concept was really driven home in my psyche when I read Steve Solomon and Erica Reinheimer ’s bookThe Intelligent Gardener .
Before read it , I never thought all that hard about the many mineral our plants require and how they relate to our own wellness . I scattered as many different reservoir of fertilty around my gardens from kelp meal to eggshells , brood ivory to weed tea … but Solomon and Reinheimer literally plough it into a science .
They advocate fertilizing to specific ratio as establish on complete ground examination , which if you ’re a data flake and love that sort of thing , you may want to do .
I just keep shift all the ingredient in my compost tea cask like an syndicalist since getting that deep into numbers is n’t good for me .
Here are my final thoughts:
Mulch well ; then get some rich tea leaf going or a right organic mix of fertilizer ; then murder your trees every calendar month from February through August ; then quit so they can safely introduce dormancy .
For blueberries , throw on elemental S and all the coffee bean grounds and mulch with all the rotten pine barque you may clean .
Do n’t confuse away any log or leaves . Instead , put them around the bases of your tree to flow the fungus kingdom and skillful guys foresightful - terminus .
You will succeed – it ’s just a matter of growing trees like they spring up in a woods … plus giving them a adept strike of birth rate so they can succeed their battle against the grass and the brutal Florida weather . right fertilise the room nature does it – with a few tweak – will make it happen !
salvage
