1 part by volume:  Bone meal or rock phosphate

1 part by volume:  Lime, preferably dolomite on most soils.

(Soils derived from serpentine rock contain almost toxic levels of magnesium and should not receive dolomite.  Alkaline soils may still benefit from additional calcium and should get gypsum instead of ordinary lime.)

1/2 part by volume:  kelp meal or other dried seaweed.

To use this fertilizer, broadcast and work in about one gallon per each 100 square feet of growing bed or 50 feet of row.  This is enough for all low-demand vegetables like carrots, beans and peas.

For more needy species, blend an additional handful or two into about a gallon of soil below the transplants or in the hill.  If planting in rows, cut a deep furrow, sprinkle in about one pint of fertilizer per 10-15 row feet, cover the fertilizer with soil and then cut another furrow to sow the seeds in about two inches away.  Locating concentrations of nutrition close to seeds or seedlings is called “banding.”

I have a thick file of letters thanking me for suggesting the use of this fertilizer blend.  If you’ve been “building up your soil” for years, or if your vegetables never seem to grow as large or lustily as you imagine they should, I strongly suggest you experiment with a small batch of this mixture.  Wouldn’t you like heads of broccoli that were 8-12 inches in diameter?  Or zucchini plants that didn’t quit yielding?

CHAPTER NINE

Making Superior Compost

The potency of composts can vary greatly.  Most municipal solid waste compost has a high carbon to nitrogen ratio and when tilled into soil temporarily provokes the opposite of a good growth response until soil animals and microorganisms consume most of the undigested paper.  But if low-grade compost is used as a surface mulch on ornamentals, the results are usually quite satisfactory even if unspectacular.

If the aim of your own composting is to conveniently dispose of yard waste and kitchen garbage, the information in the first half of the book is all you need to know.  If you need compost to make something that dependably GROWS plants like it was fertilizer, then this chapter is for you.

A Little History

Before the twentieth century, the fertilizers market gardeners used were potent manures and composts.  The vegetable gardens of country folk also received the best manures and composts available while the field crops got the rest.  So I’ve learned a great deal from old farming and market gardening literature about using animal manures.  In previous centuries, farmers classified manures by type and purity.  There was “long” and “short” manure, and then, there was the supreme plant growth stimulant, chicken manure.