Tag Archives: soil building

Garden Advice

Using Manure in the Garden

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It’s now believed that farmers have been using manure to fertilize their crops for at least 8000 years! Spreading manure on fields and gardens to increase soil fertility has long been common, especially when most folks were keeping livestock. Today, it can be more tricky. So whether you’ve got your own backyard farm or not, here are a few things you should know about using manure in the garden. 

Pros

  • It’s full of nutrients! Manure is an excellent source of primary plant nutrients nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus. It also includes secondary nutrients; calcium, magnesium, and sulfur that may not be found in commercial garden fertilizers.
  • Manure adds organic matter and improves soil structure. This allows optimum root growth and increases the soil’s ability to hold moisture.
  • You can often find manure for free or use your own from your own livestock.

Cons

  • Fresh manure can contain bacteria that can contaminate crops and make you sick.
  • It often contains weed seeds.
  • It may contain pesticides, herbicides, or other chemicals.
  • Fresh manure contains high levels of nitrogen, ammonia, and salts which can burn crops. 

Sourcing Good Manure

If you own livestock, using their manure is the best choice. To fertilize your garden, you can use chicken, goat, cow, horse, rabbit, and other livestock manure. Avoid cat and dog waste as their feces can contain toxins and heavy metals that will remain in your garden. 

If you don’t own animals, it may be possible to source manure from a local farm. However, you may want to ask some questions. Herbicides can stay in manure and ruin your garden, so it’s essential to ask if the animals were allowed to graze where an herbicide was sprayed. 

It’s also worth noting that not all animal manures are the same. Manure from herbivores like horses and cows has a lower nitrogen to carbon ratio than omnivore manure like that from pigs and chickens. Therefore herbivore manure won’t burn your crops even if it’s fresh. You should also note that horses don’t digest seeds, so horse manure will have more weed seeds in it. 

Composting Manure

Some of the “cons” of manure are easily taken care of by composting it. Composting your manure will kill any bacteria and allow it to mellow, so it’s not high in nitrogen, ammonia, or salts and won’t burn your crops. A good, hot compost pile can also render weed seed inviable. 

To compost manure, you’ll want to follow the same techniques we discussed in Black Gold: Making Compost. Mix your nitrogen-rich manure with good sources of carbon such as old leaves, straw, or shredded paper; alternate layers as you build your pile. Keep the pile moist and turn it over every few weeks to encourage aerobic decomposition. It’s ready when it looks like black, crumbly soil and is no longer hot or smelly. 

You can apply composted manure to the garden the same way you use your regular compost. Spread a few inches on a bed before planting, add it to homemade potting mixes, or side-dress crops. 

Aging Manure

Your other option is to age manure rather than compost it. It’s exactly like what it sounds. You pile it and leave it. This process can take longer than composting, particularly if you’re starting with manure that’s high in nitrogen, like pig manure. 

Applying Fresh Manure

If you want to apply fresh manure, you need to select “cool” manure like horse, cow, or rabbit manure. Other manures, including goat, poultry, and pig, may burn your crops. Goat and sheep manure may be okay if it’s mixed in with carbon-rich bedding like straw or hay.

One of the safest ways to use fresh manure is to follow the USDA National Organic Program Guidelines. They state that if the crop may come into contact with the soil, whether it’s touching them directly like with beets or splashing on them like with Swiss chard or cucumbers, it must be applied 120 prior to harvest. If the crop won’t be in contact with the soil like corn or dry beans, the manure must be applied 90 days prior to harvest. 

It’s a long time! This timeframe keeps crops safe from bacterial contamination such as E. coli and Salmonella. However, many home gardens don’t feel the need to follow such stringent guidelines. Just make sure you wash your veggies well if there’s a chance they’ve come into contact with the manure, especially if you don’t know where the manure came from.

Can You Use “Humanure?”

Using composted human waste to fertilize crops used to be common throughout much of the world. Composting human waste can reduce pollution and water consumption. Setting up a composting toilet is also much easier and cost-effective than installing a septic system and is a popular choice for off-grid and tiny homes. 

So is it safe? Yes, when done correctly. There are a number of fairly basic considerations to composting human waste. For example, you want to ensure your compost bins aren’t on wet ground or somewhere they could contaminate ground or surface water. You should also compost your waste for a year before use, and you should use it around fruit trees, berry bushes, and ornamental plants where it won’t get on food crops. Modern Farmer has a more detailed piece on humanure you can find here.

 

Garden Advice

10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Soil

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Want healthy plants? Start by building healthy soil. Your soil health can affect your plant’s productivity, disease and pest resistance, and more. Use these ten strategies to improve your soil and build a healthier, more productive garden.

1. Start composting.

Compost enriches the soil and adds structure and beneficial fungi and bacteria. It’s an excellent amendment for any garden and easy to make yourself. Check out our post, Black Gold: Making Compost, for easy directions to get started in your backyard.

Those without yards can consider vermicomposting or check with community gardens or city compost facilities to bring kitchen scraps to and access aged compost.

2. Grow cover crops.

Cover crops are not just for big farms! Cover crops help improve the soil in many ways. Some are “nitrogen fixers” like clover and vetch and add nitrogen to the soil as they grow; other crops like buckwheat help quickly build up organic matter and make excellent mulch.

All cover crops are a good way to cover the soil. They shade it holding in moisture, provide habitat for beneficial insects and pollinators, and their roots hold the soil preventing erosion.

You can read more about using cover crops in your garden here.

3. Get a soil test.

Testing your soil can help you make the best choices for your garden, saving you time and money. You’ll learn what nutrients may be missing and whether you should amend your soil’s pH. Check out Understanding Soil Tests for a more in-depth explanation.

You can purchase at-home soil tests at most garden centers or send your soil to be tested. Many universities and state and county extension services offer very affordable soil testing.

4. Understand the soil food web.

The soil food web is similar to a “food chain” but is non-linear. It’s made up of plants, animals, and all the organisms in the soil from visible insects and fungus to microscopic bacteria. A healthy soil food web is key to a healthy garden and ecosystem. Learn more by reading our post, The Soil Food Web.

5. Reduce erosion.

Not everyone is blessed with a large, perfectly flat garden site. Even if you are, wind can still wreak havoc on exposed soil. Don’t lose soil to the effects of wind and water.

If you live in a windy area, utilize windbreaks. These can be fencing, shrubs, or trees. Even young shrubs and trees can make a surprising difference.

To prevent water erosion, you should try to keep your soil covered. Use cover crops whenever possible and keep the soil around plants mulched. Permanent pathways with a cover crop like clover are ideal.

If your property is sloped, look into permaculture methods like planting on contour and building swales. These can help you stop erosion and collect water for your plants!

6. Provide habitat for beneficial insects.

When people hear beneficial insects, they often think of bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. While you should strive to help these species, there are many more that also play key roles in keeping your garden healthy. These include many predatory species such as wasps, beetles, and mantises.

You can support beneficial insects in many ways. Using cover crops and mulch, as I mentioned above, helps provide habitat as does planting native species and leaving dead material in your garden (unless it has a pest or disease issue). You can also create your own habitat by building an insect hotel.  Of course, it’s also important to avoid using pesticides. Even organic pesticides can spell doom for beneficial insects as they usually affect more than one species. 

7. Use mulch.

I’ve mentioned mulch a couple of times now, but it’s incredibly helpful in the garden. It helps to block weeds, keep the soil cool and moist (or warm in the winter), and provides structure and organic matter as it breaks down.

Check our post, Mulch Ado…, to learn more about why mulch is important and how we use it at SESE.

8. Rotate your crops.

Whether you have an acre in garden or just a tiny little plot, you should rotate your crops. Rotating crops prevents pests and diseases from building up the soil where you grow a particular plant. It also helps to reduce nutrient depletion. One year you grow heavy feeders like tomatoes or corn, and the next, you grow nitrogen fixers like beans and peas or a cover crop.

Need advice? See Planning Crop Rotation by Plant Family.

9. Amend your soil.

As you’ll learn from your soil test, it is sometimes necessary to add amendments to your soil. These amendments can be used to change the soil’s pH like lime, wood ash, or peat moss. Other amendments allow you to add the macro and micronutrients that are necessary for plant growth. These include manure, compost, eggshells, greensand, and fertilizer.

Learn more about amendments and common nutrient deficiencies in plants here.

10. Reduce or eliminate tilling.

Rototilling may seem like a crucial part of gardening, but many farmers, gardeners, and scientists have discovered that it’s possible to grow a more productive and more environmentally friendly garden by ditching the tiller.

Going no-till reduces compaction and keeps the soil structure intact. It allows you to use plant and cover crop residue as mulch that will decompose as it would in a natural ecosystem. It also allows beneficial bacteria, insects, and fungi to thrive in the soil. 

Follow these tips to build healthy soil in your garden.

Garden Advice

Common Nutrient Deficiencies in Plants

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Spotting nutrient deficiencies in your plants can be challenging, especially if you’re new to gardening. Here are what a few common deficiencies look like and how to correct them.

Soil Nutrients

Nutrients in the soil can be divided into two categories macronutrients and micronutrients/trace minerals.

The first category, macronutrients, comprises primary nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium and secondary nutrients sulfur, magnesium, and calcium. If you think your plant has a nutrient deficiency, these are the likely culprits.

The second category, known as micronutrients or trace minerals, includes boron, chlorine, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum, and zinc. While these are still important to plant health, they’re needed in such small quantities that it’s less likely your plant is deficient in one of these micronutrients.

You can read more detailed descriptions of what all of these nutrients do in our post, Understanding Soil Tests.

Nitrogen Deficiency

A nitrogen-deficient plant will grow slowly and lack vigor. The leaves may turn pale and yellow before dropping off, with the oldest leaves dropping first.

Note that it’s easy to overdo it when adding nitrogen, especially if you’re using chemical fertilizer. Adding too much nitrogen will cause lush, dark green foliar growth at the expense of fruit and flower production.

There are many ways to add nitrogen to your soil. While you shouldn’t directly apply it to plants, animal manure is a good choice if you have access to it. Compost will also add some nitrogen, or you can add seaweed or kelp meal, fish emulsion, bone meal, coffee grounds, soybean meal, or cottonseed meal. Using legume cover crops also helps to increase your soil’s nitrogen levels.

Phosphorus Deficiency

A plant that is deficient in phosphorus will also lack vigor and may be stunted. It might drop fruit before it’s ripe or not produce fruit at all. The lower leaves may appear red or purple.

You can add phosphorus to your soil using rock phosphate, greensand, compost, or bonemeal.

Potassium Deficiency

Potassium deficiency will probably be most apparent in your plant’s leaves, which may be mottled or curled or have brown edges. The plants will also be weak and have stunted root growth. They will likely be more susceptible to disease and pest issues.

Good potassium sources include manure, compost, seaweed or kelp meal, potash, granite dust, greensand, and wood ashes.

Sulfur Deficiency

While sulfur is a macronutrient, a sulfur deficiency is much less common. Signs include stunted growth and pale, yellow leaves.

Add sulfur with gypsum, compost, or sulfur.

Magnesium Deficiency

If your plant is deficient in magnesium, you may notice poor flower and fruit production, stunted growth, and dropping leaves. Leaves may also appear mottled with yellow/white patches or purple/brown patches between the leaf veins.

To correct a magnesium deficiency, add limestone, manure, compost, or greensand.

Calcium Deficiency

Calcium deficient plants may die back or have buds that die. Their leaves will likely appear burnt, curling, or have necrotic leaf margins. You may also notice issues like blossom end rot and other signs of tissue necrosis.

Use oyster shells, eggshells, limestone, gypsum, or fishmeal to add calcium to your soil.

Notice how similar a lot of these symptoms are?

If you’re having problems with nutrient deficiencies, the best advice is always to get your soil tested. It isn’t complicated or expensive and will tell you precisely what you need.

It will also tell you what your soil’s pH is. Soil pH can affect plants’ nutrient uptake and may cause deficiencies even if your soil is otherwise fine.

If your soil test comes out fine, your plants may be struggling due to over or underwatering or disease issues.

How do I prevent deficiencies?

The first step you should take is to develop a garden rotation plan that includes cover crops. They’re excellent for preventing erosion and adding nutrients to your soil.

Yearly applications of good quality compost can provide a wide range of nutrients to your soil.