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| Hi
We live in a house which already has a lot of plants (flowers and fruits) and has an area for planting tomatoes and other vegetables. I have used artificial fertilizer in the past but after reading a lot of posts here, I have started to wonder if there are long term effects of this. If I don't use fertilizer, I presume I should be adding organic matter periodically. How often does this have to be done? I see a lot of craigslist ads for horse and chicken manure. Is that a good idea? Any other pointers? I am in Northern California (near San Jose). Thanks. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Kam! Congratulations! You saw the light!! Are you able to compost? Do you have access to city compost? That's always a good place to start, and manures are a second good place to start. If you're "into" gardening, ~smile, you will be gathering organic materials as they are available. Forever. If you aren't, you'll apply manure or compost at least once annually. |
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| Be careful with the horse compost. It has to have gotten hot enough to kill the seeds in it. My Dad made this mistake years ago and pig-weed is all over the garden, can't get rid of it! |
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| He could get rid of it if he were a mulcher. |
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| I blend horse manure with chicken manure at a ratio of 4:1 and add natural zeolite and rock dust. I don't worry about composting or burning the plants because I use raised beds and a weed cover. It is the ammonia that burns the plants but the zeolite absorbs the ammonia, provides a host for nitrifying bacteria and if you live in the city it will prevent lead (from ethyl gasoline burned before non-leaded) uptake by the plants. In fact, I LIKE manure that has a strong ammonia smell. It is the ammonia that is converted to nitrates. |
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| Your soil will need annual additions of organic matter, compost or other forms of that. The manures could be part of that, but should only be part of the soil additives. Getting tree leaves around San Jose will be much easier then it would be around San Diego and those are a very good soil amendment as well as mulch. You want to get the level of organic matter, humus, in your soil up to 5 to 8 percent. Manure that smells heavily of ammonia is too fresh to use in a garden and from that the potential of disease pathogens is much greater than it would be from composted, or aged, manure. If animal manures are used where food crops are to be planted they should be applied no sooner then 90 to 120 days to harvest because of the potential of disease pathogens. |
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