The More I Learn the Less I Know

I changed to organics about 7 years ago. Took a class at the Denver Botanic Gardens, had a simple menu that was working excellent with my roses and flowers, sort of ok with my vegies. I started with 3 feedings a year - cottonseed meal or alfalfa in the spring, alfalfa in July, soy meal in the fall. Every now and then I add something else that is on a list from the class I took - but I've come to find out I don't know what each product does. The alternates I add might be sweet dried molasses, dried fish menhaden, magnesium sulfate (epson salts), and anything else I might pick up the year before on sale like an Espanosa something or other.

A couple years ago I put in raised beds for growing vegies, and this year for the first time, I started all my tomatoes and most of my vegies from seeds. I was told by several people that with raised beds you squeeze everything together and fertilize every two or three weeks. I did look at the Square Foot Garening book.

I have nice large leafy tomato plants side by side in the bed, but very few flowers and even fewer tomatoes. I started d-mailing with Horseshoe off another thread, and he suggested starting this thread to get some more input. The soil in the raised beds is new - 2/3 top soil, 1/3compost. I sprinkled alfala on the vegie beds along with my grass and flower beds, also dried fish meal. I probably threw bone meal on the vegie beds but don't remember specifically. I have a pretty free hand with bone meal. Then I put on the veggie beds a snall bag of Esponosa vegie feed - I used the whole bag on about 160 square feet. I come to find out the recommended amount is 3 pounds for 2500 feet.

I would like to hear some successful experience with how much and how often to fertilize vegies in raised beds.

I owuld also like to know which organic products produce certain results - ie lots of leaves for lettuce - what would you put on; big red or purple or tasty yellow tomaotes - (heirlooms) what would you put on? .Potatoes? brocolli? Whatever?

I want to make a chart for me ot use next year. I'd like to fix the tomatoes this year if I can. I probably also need to know what to stay away from. When I started gardening a few years ago with roses, I had to buy every tool imaginable to try it all out. I think I'm in the stage of buying everything I think is organic but i'm getting in trouble with this one.

Happy gardening!!

Cathylovesroses

I don't know about the Esponosa stuff. I usually use some kind of green manure I till under in the spring. With tomatoes, in the past I have side dressed them with composted manure at the beginning of the season and that's it. I don't use raised beds, more like hilled beds, but I do cram the plants in there. Last year I used Steve Solomon's recipe for organic fert instead of composted manure. It's mostly made of soybean and alfalfa meals with minerals added. But it was a bad tomato year here because of late blight, so I can't really compare that. IME, though, when plants have lots of leaves and no fruits (or flowers), it means an excess of nitrogen. Peaceful Valley used to sell an organic fertilizer made by Omega that you could use as a foliar spray to promote fruiting. I used it on plants, and it does work, but I noticed that although there was more fruits/flowers, they were smaller. Here's what I used:

http://www.groworganic.com/item_F1819_Omega_155_Quart.html

It does contain animal bits (blood meal and bone meal).

Thanks Paracelsus.

I went to the Peaceful Valley site and slimmed entries on the in The Loop Organic Gardening. Couple Questions.

Q - Have any of you found egregious errors in this resource that would raise your concern about a newbie being led off track. I am not looking to criticize or slam anybody, so if you have something negative to say, please feel free to send it to me by D-mail. I am not looking for perfection, and there are several ways ot do things. I just want to know if the info is generally reliable.

Q - does the phrase low PH soi mean the same thing as alkaline soil. My soil is alkaline, does that mean the ph is low?.

Q - How exact do you have to be with soil testing as far as gathering samples? I have flower beds which were originally clay and betonite - actually, the house had no beds until I moved in. I had the beds cut out and removed the top 6 inches of clay and replaced it with a commercial planting mix - 2/3 top soil, 1/3 compost, different amount of organics through the yuears. Vegie beds - same commercial planting mix and all the stuff I put in this year. Lawn - looks good. Do I need two samples to take in? One from flower beds and one from vegie beds?

Hi, cathylovesroses,

Well, I've been buying from Peaceful Valley for many years, but I never knew they had a blog until just now. So I don't know how reliable the info there is. Because I have bought from them so long and I know they supply a lot of certified organic growers, and they run the blog, I would think it would be pretty reliable info. They do have a lot of info right there on the Peaceful Valley site in the form of pdfs that go with various products.

Low pH is more acidic. I remember this because one time I got some stuff that was pH 13 in my mouth. Very base and very unpleasant. Alkaline soil is aka "sweet" or limey or chalky and would be higher pH.

Re soil testing, I have been gardening for almost 30 years and have never had my soil tested. People I know who do it usually select it from several areas they are going to use.

cathylovestomatoes - Here are the directions for soil samples from the Kansas State Extension Office. I would assume that the colorado extension office would have something similar. http://www.johnson.ksu.edu/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=120

Nitrogen can be and issue and also have seen where the weather can cause problems also. Some years (like last year) we had enough rain and cooler weather that the tomatoes were three weeks late.

This message was edited Jul 26, 2010 1:16 PM

We garden commercially, completely organic and vegan. I add alphalfa meal for the major nutrients (NPK) plus calcuim and magnesium. I add kelp meal for the majors plus it contains trace elements. Cottonseed meal gives me more nitrogen. We add dry molasses to feed the beneficial microbes that break all that slow release stuff down so the plants can use it. I add chelated minerals and greensand for potassium and iron.
I add compost made from wood shavings, grass clippings and vegetable matter. The wood shavings are acidic and help lower my pH from 8.5 to 7.