Re: [compost_tea] adding soya meal to the soil
Hello Ian C,
Well....
In the vegetable garden I like to mix it as thoroughly as possible.
This means different things at different times.
I have top dressed my "lawn"; it's about 3' x 10'. Doesn't take much
(sounds like you used WAY too much). Water it in. Pretty immediate
results.
Best to stay with organic fertilizer for lawns especially. Compost is
good enough. Even the purchased stuff - ... think about a handful per
10 sq ft.
Flower beds... i dunno. Do you really want more leaves in there?
Sometimes yes, mostly no....
I likely should be adding nitrogen to my compost pile. It's tough,
though, as the meals are such good fertilizer by themselves, and they
run up to about $1 per lb. Still, having kept chickens and goats in the
past, that's probably a bargain.
I'm not a real good compost maker. Part is the missing nitrogen . The
other missing ingredient is the turning. So.... I'm still learning.
Honestly, I'm not even sure what to do with the low grade compost I do
make. When it comes out of the kitchen scraps tumbler, it is in balls,
which mainly seem to attract symphlans under the mulch in the garden. I
kinda dislike being in the business of feeding symphlans in the
vegetable garden. If any soil biologists are reading this, What do you
think about symphlan populations? They are going crazy in my vegetable
garden, but so are the vegetables. I can see maybe 100 in a cup of soil
sometimes.
I am trying to foster life in the vegetable garden. So far, I suspect
the main ingredients are carbon, nitrogen, water and warmth. The light
straw mulch helps provide a blanket to conserve moisture, but I admit it
does seem to be alot of work; with the T-tape drip irrigation
underneath. Warmth is something we are sort of lacking here on the
central coast of California, with out 52 degree year round nights.
Erica
On 6/20/2011 3:09 AM, RTS Friction - Carruthers wrote:
>
> Hi Erica
> Do u add your Soya/feather meal early to the compost or
> mix into the compost prior to application or
> dig it into the soil before additions of compost ?
> I ask this because I added it (Soya) as a sort of light top-dressing
> to my lawn & flower beds. In the areas
> spread a bit thick it rotted (smelly) & went moldy, during which time
> the blue-bottle flies moved in.
> Thanks
> Ian C
>
> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<snip>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> *From:* EAReinheimer <mailto:erica_r_at_charter.net> *To:*
> compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com <mailto:compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, June 20, 2011 2:00 AM
>
> Mine is about 2%. Until I started adding 50# sacks of soymeal,
> now feather meal, the garden never produced like I wanted it to.
> It is extremely difficult to get those results by adding manure
> and/or compost. For some reason, the percent nitrogen of the
> amendment plays a big role in it's effectiveness. Likely this is
> because it takes some nitrogen just to decompose the carbon in the
> amendment itself.
>
>
Received on Tue Jun 21 2011 - 09:34:23 EDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0
: Tue Feb 07 2012 - 13:58:11 EST