How to get way more from your garden cheaply

Thanks a lot Dan I never would have thought of that. I will definitely look into it as they maybe the only source in my area for Granite.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

We figure that the easiest way to add minerals to our land and gardens is to make sure the goats and cow have a good mineral block.

The greater part of the land gets fertilized daily with sprinklings of fortified nanny berries and pies. The gardens get their share of the minerals from composted goat bedding and the pies we scoop up in the backyards closest to the house.

Gives us a nice combination of organic compost with added minerals. And it's nice to know that we get more than one use out of each mineral block.

Lynda

BRILLIANT!

I Guess their is more than one way to skin a cat. Good Idea

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

Try rock Phosphate or bone meal.

If you don't/can't have animals, how about just buying the animal mineral block and whacking the heck out of it with a small sledgehammer to make the dust -- then either spreading it on the garden (maybe in the fall so it can work itself in over the winter), or tilling it in when sprign comes, or spreading it a little at a time on the compost heap. Or maybe just setting the animal mineral block on top of the compost heap (on a piece of board maybe) and letting the rain put the mineral in the compost using a "trickle down" theory - and then spreading the compost on the garden?!

MaryNY

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"...creating & living an independent, self-reliant, building constructing, garden-/animal-raising, food-preserving, ecologically sound, solar/off-the-grid, self-made, individualistic lifestyle..."

Your garden may need the other minerals, but it really doesn't need the salt so badly.

Anyway, there's a lot more to soil science than some single magic bullet. If the pH, organic matter, etc, aren't right, the minerals will just sit there in forms unavailable to the plants. I say haul in anything and everything you can. Make the garden a goat yard over the winter and feed lots of hay. Let the chickens have a while on it to scratch it all up in the spring. Haul in whatever organic waste products you can get your hands on and till them in (minding pH and C:N ratio in the process).

Dan

Great and useful links Jsnap -thanks

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Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take but by the moments that take your breath away

WVPEACH (paula)

Great advice I do that and will also be trying rock powder by the way 10 carbon (dead leaves sawdust and the like) to 1 nitrogen various manures fresh grass cutting fish meal cottenseed meal and the like) is a good ratio to use for those who may not know.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

Your welcome glad they were useful to somefolks.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer