The original soil in the Ozark mountains is made up of clay and rocks and registers at about 5.7 PH on our homestead land. Not exactly the best soil for growing a garden right out of the gate. We are big believers of making your own soil or making your soil better by simply adding natural materials in the form of nitrogen (grass clippings, dead plants, straw, etc) and carbon (wood chips, saw dust compost, etc).
You can make some really good soil year after year by layering natural materials over the top of one another. However, you can really give your garden explosive potential by adding a few other natural materials. These natural editions to your garden will load up the soil and microbiology with minerals and nutrients only found in some of the most FERTILE LOCATIONS ON EARTH! We've been doing it now for 5 years and I can tell you that the more you vary the soil amendments, the more growth you will see in your garden.
- AZOMITE
The first thing I always recommend especially for first time gardeners or for gardeners that are having growth issues in their garden is rock dust.
Azomite is pulled from the earth at an ancient volcanic ash deposit site in Utah. The ash is packed full of natural trace minerals. These micro nutrients give your soil and plants the equivalent of a dose of healthy vitamins. In turn, the plants use these vitamins to grow strong and ward off disease and pests and withstand adverse weathering and create a hardier plant overall. This is always my first recommendation for a new or struggling garden to build up soil potential.
- Magnesium
Do you ever go out to your garden and find plants with yellowing leaves? Or maybe they are green but they are just not as bright as they could be.
Having this natural mineral in your soil will allow your plants to more easily distribute the chlorophyll around the leaves. This results in a healthier looking and stronger plant. The resulting fruit from the plant will also be healthier for you as well!
- Bat Guano
I once had someone tell me that they would never grow their vegetable garden in any kind of poop and that it's not natural. They would only grow a garden in dirt.
I believe the more kinds of poop you can add to your soil, the better your soil will be. We do compost humanure on our homestead but only reserve it for fruit trees and black berry vines. Bat Guano is proven to be some of the most plant favored nitrogen additions you can put on your garden. Yes, it can be expensive but you are benefiting your garden by adding yet another amazing nutrient your plants can use to grow. Even if you purchase a little and broadcast it thin, I think your plants will love it!
- Coffee Grounds
Besides Azomite rock dust, coffee grounds are the top pick for me to put on my garden every year. And to think that many people just throw them away in the trash. If you want to boost worm activity in your soil, give them your left over coffee grounds.
BOTTOM LINE TO EXCEPTIONAL GARDENING
Photo by Laylita
THE SALAD
Think of your soil for the garden like a salad. Your base for the salad is one kind of lettuce. It's nice, but it's boring. So you add in a few other kinds of lettuce greens. Now the salad is getting a bit more interesting. So you add some small slices of carrots, some chopped onion, a few olives and diced tomatoes. Then top it off with a bit of cheese and a dressing and now you have a party in your salad bowl! The same is true with your garden. If you add different natural materials to your soil, you're enhancing it and helping the plants growing in it to have all the needed materials to produce for your salad.
You can't expect to have a green thumb by only planting in dirt. You need to care for the dirt and add to it to make it come alive with microbial activity and then sit back and watch the fantastic growth of nature!
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I like to pile the stuff in a nice tall mound and then let my chickens level it out. In addition to providing eggs, they are great little tillers that even add a bunch of their own nitrogen to the mix.
Yeah, chickens are good like that. They usually have free range over our garden after things have died down. They tear the soil up and add their little piles of goodness. It's not enough to make the soil hot...just enough to add some good nitrogen.
All of those are great amendments. I aren’t used any rock dust, as it’s rather expensive for a large area. I find wood ash provides all the minerals I need, plus it alkalinizes my slightly acidic soil. I also use a ton of leaves as they are so available here in MI. I use worm castings for seed starting, and compost my coffee grounds.
My soil is sandy with no rocks, so it’s much different from yours. I use some manures when I have access to them cheaply, usually cow or chicken, but I mainly use my urine for nitrogen if needed by the plants. I totally agree, the more diversity of elements you add to your soil, the more soil life it will support. Finding this elements in abundance and cheaply I think is the challenge.
Yes, we will add wood ash from our stove in the winter. It really help to mineralize the soil. There is some good stuff in there.
I grow my bonsai trees in lava so I know the benefits of that awesome stuff!
Sharing to twitter to get the word out!
RIGHT!
We began our soil amendment by alkalizing. But we found later that our soil is already very alkaline, a ph of 8. Now we're acidifying our soil. We used unused coffee grounds (right from the can) to help acidify the soil for our raspberries and blueberries. We also used bone meal and blood meal to help with nitrogen levels. @ironshield
WAIT? You mean you put perfectly good coffee on the ground? AH!!!! I hope at least it was the cheap stuff. LOL :)
$4.00 cheap coffee. Keeps our berries perky and caffeinated. Especially in the morning. @ironshield
Now that’s how to treat your garden. I bet they don’t mind it’s the cheap stuff!
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Awesome stuff. Resteemed!
wow..
thats a great post..
dont forget vote back and follow back
Great tips! I always find interesting tips in your posts I use for my garden.
What do you mean by this?
It was nice to read :) I look your new post soon :)
Hard to believe so much goes into fertilizing and keeping the pH of soil so good.
Guess I should have paid better attention in high school science classes!
It’s so candid to say, good health starts with the health of our soil, I am 100% with you because you’re nature friendly.
That’s the key to healthy foods and healthy humans. Thanks for bringing Azomite & co across our way through steemit.
Please @mericanhomestead continue with your good work on steemit and beyond.
I remain your humble friend and follower @maxdevalue
well the great to discus on it and also i want to try it bcz many time i see these conditon the the green leaves not bright and also good to suggest it @mericanhomestead
very nice post
I wrote a couple 'How To' steemit posts on building and maintaining an indoor vermicompsting bin.Nice post. Another great amendment i like is vermicompost (wormpoop) Do you do any vermicomposting @mericanhomestead ?
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Another product to try is milorganite. The city of Milwaukee, WI makes it by drying out the microbes left over from their wastewater treatment facility. I've never had the chance to use the stuff, but many people swear by it.
http://www.milorganite.com
I have always put our ashes from the wood stove and our used coffee grounds, but seeing your video reminded me of The coffee shops! I’m going to go today and ask about their used grounds. We drink coffee daily but not enough to cover our garden. Thank you❗️
Thanks for the article. Easily applied information there. This season I covered my beds with 5inches of dried leafs knowing that by spring a lot of it will have broken down into rich soil. Feed the soil and it'll reward you!
That's really interesting, will definitely save my used coffee in future. Thanks
Hey Zac - I must admit I think you are onto something with the rock dust in areas with poor soil or gardens that do not have multiple years of layering of the gardens with different organic materials. Keep the good stuff coming!
i love youre post
Great post resteemed👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Dirt is poop! Didn’t need that visualization :p I’m curious if the reason you plant potatoes in a box in because of your clay soil? We have clay soil here and my husband says the potatoes will grow in goofy shapes since they can’t expand.
My wood chips, chicken poop, azomite, grass clippings, dried leaves, and compost make for a really great soil. The only problem I have is that weeds LOVE good soil too so if i'm not on top of it they take over. he good news is that with deep mulch, its easy plucking those weeds from the ground!'