Potash

I have been told that I need to put potash on my irises this fall as a fertilizer. Is there a good organic way of doing that or do I have to buy muriate of potash. I use a lot of compost and bone meal when I plant or feed them.

Potash is potassium and a natural source is wood ashes. The only problem is that it is a soil neutralizer so acidic soil is affected and alkaline soil is harmed. Potash is in high quantities in any home grown compost. Use that rather than pure potash. Just my opinion.

Thanks, Soferdig, that is exactly what I wanted to know. It seems to me that anything you need to grow a plant is in compost, so why add anything else? I know bone meal is a bit on the alkaline side as well, but it probably is balanced out by my pine needles.

Yes the calcium salts in bone meal will tend to be alkaline. But that phosphorous is a continual giving flower giver. I tend to add about 5 gallons of wood ash to each of my compost piles when it is done. This I put on top to have it gravitate down when I fork out the contents into the new bed. I also have watered it in after the pile has cooked.

I will have my soil tested this fall to see what the potash and ph issues are. Generally we are told, in New Mexico, not to use ashes because they are way too alkaline. Before I decide that I should look into my actual soil alkalinity. Since I live in the Pondersa Belt, maybe I already have acid soil, in which case wood ashes would be good. I have a huge woodpile, left over from the Y2K scare. I can have a nice fire and save the ashes for my soil -- if it isn't already too alkaline. I do use plenty of bone meal and from time to time, rock phosphate, but I am not very knowledgable about ph of our soil in Los Alamos.

Wood ash has some salts, (alkaline salts...) and your soil may already be a Potassion goldmine, do ahve it tested. My clay here actually has TOO MUCH potassium. A soil test also says we have just enough to too much phosphorous (no need for bone meal...)
But what I don't have is Nitrogen, so Bloodmeal and grass clippngs are teh call of the day in GJ, to those who know. The rest go the the garden center and buy their annual 10-10-10, doing nothing but promoting the local economy.

I use my ashes as a weed barrier along the ditchbank... Turns to near-concrete over time.
Kenton

Yes, I had heard that soil around here had lots of potash and littte phosphorous and nitrogen. I guess I will have to break down and have a soil test. I am actually getting to know my county extension agent rather well.
Betty

That $20 for a test will save you so much more in future! Good for you, he/she should be the end of the line for real research-based information.
Or you could just ask what tests near you are coming up as...
K

I will probably do both. I think any of the several thousand people on the Mesa where I live probably have virtually identical soil.
Betty

Except yours. Much better there given a little time!

True! I add lots of compost but it always feels like a drop in the bucket. Still the places where I have added the most, have better than the places where I haven't. I have an area where I always grow onions and garlic -- I have been composting that area the longest and every year my garlic gets bigger. My onions also get bigger and the crops get larger. I attribute this to 6 or more years of composting profusely.
Oh, by the way, that onion patch used to be a gavel driveway for the previous owners' RV . They cut down enough trees that they could fit it in right behind the house. I began, slowly but surely to turn it into a garden because there were lots of weeds there and I needed something else to take their place. So onions and garlic it was. I don't really understand what the difference is in their needs but the onions did well from the start, but the garlics were tiny. Now I have nice big garlics there.
I know I should rotate crops, but it works so well, I haven't been able to talk myself into it.

Potash is only deficient in areas where water takes it away. Like where I lived in Michigan and lots of sand and the glaciers created a good run off into the St Lawrence river for quite a while. Meanwhile in Wyoming they have accumulated a lot of potash and mine it for the depleated midwest. I have plenty here in Montana but I feel that trace minerals that have accumulated in the wood (ash) are good for the plants in my garden. I use only about 5 gal of ash in 130 cu ft of compost bin. The rest I scatter down in my ponderosa forest and have anxiously waited for a crop of Morele Mushrooms. None yet. But I am still experimenting.
Kenton I am building a holding tank for my hoist trailor so I can load it up with manure or Whatever and when I get it home I will use the winch on the front of the trailor to lift and dump the contents. I am getting excited about this machine. Oh I bought a "Dixie Chopper" garden tractor. It sounds like a harley when running (but quiet) and will do wheelies when I gun it up the hills here. Also will pull over 1000# of trailor weight. I pick it up tomorrow. I won't tell you what I paid for it. But its is sooooooooo cooooooool!

What a pleasing success story Betty. Dusty RV to big succulent garlic.

Wow Steve, I would really like to see how this works. The tank included. Very creative, I imagine, since I find it so hard to imagine...

Sounds great Steve, send us a photo when you get the whole thing together and loaded.

The tank is actually an aluminum reinforced trailor bed that has 4' high walls and headboard. It is hinged at the end of the trailor so the front is lifted by the winch and causes the contents to fall out the back. I found the perfect Aluminum material at our yacht club. Aluminum dock platforms to be bolted side by side to make the lift. It will be reinforced at the bottom with 2" angle steel so when lifted it will not bend. No more hand shoveling anything but the delivered product. I have the 6000 sq ft bed to work on over the next year to get going into a native woodland with stumps.
This will be the perfect garden "Do All" trailor. Haul manure, bark, sawdust, dirt, rocks, plants, garden machinery, and even a cow if I need one to mow the grass. LOL My Karen is getting worried that I will have no more garden inventions to realize when it is done. Soon to be marketed as the "Doo Doo All" trailor.

This message was edited Sep 14, 2006 1:09 PM

Steve you are so funny. And of course so inventive, so I am sure you will think of something else to stir your inventive juices. Your Doo Doo All trailer will a great help and time saver..

I came up with the perfect portable trailor. I am going to get a fiberglass underground fuel tank and cut off the top and end. Then I will be able to carry lots of goodies and dump them. Then when the trailor needs to be empty to haul rocks I can remove it. I found one for 200 bucks. This is my newly painted trailor.

I don't know if it is Mozilla Firefox or DG but everything is very slow this morning. Never did get your new paint job of trailer to enlarge, and couldn't tell for sure what color, Am sure it isn't my color---Purple!!!!!!!!

No its brown, Manure colored brown so I don't have to clean it out. LOL

Very good color choice