Fertilizing organically

[daugen]

I am starting a new 50X100 garden in a field, which has currently been subsoiled, then will be plowed, then rototilled til fine. After taking out three million rocks. Clay, rocky, Bucks County PA typical soil. Lots of granite, and all kinds of quarries nearby, so my new garden comes with a few challenges.
The largest one actually to me is how to raise corn, sunflowers, big pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, etc much of which needs plenty of fertilizer, to grow nicely and not use Orthos's finest?

I'm willing to pay for the convenience of bagged fertilizer, as in bone meal, dried manure, whatever the local Agway has to offer. Will apply before the last rototilling to mix it in properly. I have always had mulch piles that have produced wonderful soil, we even plant our tomatoes in ours at home and get amazing results. So how to infuse some life into a fallow field and still have my sister who eats only organic food not turn up her nose at it. She loved our tomatoes last year; we just didn't tell her how well Miracle Grow worked on them and she really didn't want to ask.

I grew up reading Rodale and Organic Gardening. Over time I will transfer the contents of a big mulch pile into the dirt in this garden. But what can you all suggest for the first year, trying to stay as natural as possible. And no overwhelming smells please so six loads of pig slurry, well, no thanks.

 

[JimRB]

I have a few folks that visit to get our horse compost. It has aged 6 months to a few years depending on what pile or how low I get. Earthworms visible some times of the year. More of a soil amendment than true fertilizer. Many pickup loads to do a good size garden though.

 

[foreman Etexas]

I went over to the neighbors and picked up after the stallions(they poop in one spot:laughing then cleaned her chicken and rabbit coops.Then took it to my parents down the road and made a big pile,then took the tiller and set it on pile and mixed it all up. I desided to put it out with 5gallon bucket(yes it was work) I just put it out were the rows were going(it made the pile go alot further) then tilled it in.

 

[daugen]

Jim, horse, cow, pig, it's all animal waste and I was hoping to avoid it, if only for e-coli issues. I have some history here that influences me. The main well on the farm I grew up on about ten miles from this garden was polluted after thirty years of the neighboring property that boarded horses, and just dumped the manure "out back". Later, much later, it finally made its way down into either the path down the hill or the aquifer, but the water in our well became seriously polluted with e-coli. And they were uphill of us, directly above our well, but maybe half a mile away. It wasn't far enough. So I guess I've been leery of animal waste ever since. The chlorinator on our well tasted miserable and made us remember how pure the water once was. Yes, I know it has wonderful growing properties. But I almost feel like a vegetarian here when I ask if there's a way to accomplish 80% and use other nutrients. Over time the composted leaves will help, I know that, but I'd like to grow some big pumpkins this year, not five years from now. My wife would like to mix up Miracle Grow in hundred gallon batches, she loves the stuff, but I'm holding her off trying to find an alternative method. The property owner is also pretty sensitive to chemicals and we all agreed that weedkillers and other chemicals were not to be used. But you have to fertilize, and I believe there was some historical factoid about the local Lenape Indians using a piece of a fish in each corn row planted. Something granular would be nice...

 

[bp fick]

Just using carbon, ie leaves etc, won't get the job done. You'll have to have something to "drive" it. Finding enough "green" to balance the brown carbon is a challenge in compost making. I use chicken litter from our own chicken barn to market garden an acre or two. I follow commonly accepted manure safe handling practices, published by State Ag Extensions in most every state.

BTW, and I'm sure you know, e-coli, like salmonella, is a fact of nature. It is everywhere and "natural". It is the specific virulent strains that are of deep concern.

 

[daugen]

agreed, "all natural" and I have absolutely no way of knowing what's in the manure I buy, regardless of the animal that made it, so I don't know if it's all the all natural good stuff, like the ladybugs, or the bad bugs like the mites. And I know E coli to some degree is all around me, it's everywhere...I'm just trying not to intensify the dose. My brother's wife was gardening on our farm and got some dirt into a recent cut on her hand. Three days in intensive care, serious blood poisoning, there's some nasty stuff in that dirt and we can't see it.

I've put a lot of manure in gardens and know it works well. Just hoping there is an alternative, something nitrogen rich which I think I understand gives the garden a kickstart. Long term I need lots of compost, and that I know how to make. How about a truckload of overripe herring? That ought to smell good downwind... Isn't there some bulk plant material, some silage derivative that can be dumped on a garden? I'm off to the local feed mill tomorrow to look for the experts and see what they recommend as a local fertilizer. I grew up opening bag after bag of something called Bovung (sp?) and bone meal and lugging them out to the garden. Isn't there something new, maybe out of fish byproducts(?) that will also act as a natural fertilizer?
I can't play American Indian; if I took a fish out of the Delaware River and planted it in my garden, all I'd get is a dose of heavy metals. So no local fish...

btw, I love meat, this is not an anti animal thing, and if I want nitrogen, there may be no better way to get it than with a load of fresh manure, or sorta fresh. I sure am not shoveling it, I can't.
There are no animals on the farm I'm putting this garden, so even though I built this sandbox, the older property owners still get to say what I dump in it. We are close friends and they trust me explicitly; I'm just trying to do due diligence here to make sure I do the right thing. That way next year I can double the garden. I have the whole 18 acres to play in, but I'm starting small and making sure things grow well, or reasonably well for a first year, before I get delusions of wannabe farmer grandeur.

 

[bp fick]

While more costly, perhaps you might consider alfalfa meal or soybean meal. Both will provide a green "manure" amendment that your plant would likely be able to take up with reasonable speed. Given the late date, those would be my choice.

The safe window for raw, non-composted manure has closed anyhow for this season.

 

[daugen]

The safe window
Thanks, three to four months I thought I read.
That sure guides me even further. So what is the "half-life" of a cockroach grade e-coli nasty? Especially the virulent stuff. Can it continue to live in ideal conditions just waiting for the roots of my fledgling longneck squash to suck it up? One of my best life long friends just retired as the head of a large municipal health dept. and he has sent me every nasty bug and epidemic bulletin issued for years now. Particularly articles about all the chemicals and even heavy metals in some foods. But he is an avid gardener too.

Beer hops. After they're done with them. That would smell nice...:thumbsup:
I think.

 

[JimRB]

The compost I get rid of has been sitting around for a year or more. It has gone through a good heat. Usually wormy. Of course you don't want to spread pure fresh manure. Well some do and sometimes they have problems. If you get aged stuff I suspect you will not have problems. The stuff that leaves my farm looks like the stuff you pay ridiculous amounts of money in stores. I could swear I have seen folks grubbing around in it with bare hands. Tip: How to Compost and Use Horse Manure

 

[powerpace]

E-coli is something to be concerned with. However it's everywhere, birds are a cause of some major contamination, any wild mammal along with the family pet.
Decomposed manure that is heated properly to break down the organic material will kill the E-coli. That's what you get when you buy Bull-in-a-bag or Chick-in-a-bag. For quantity at low cost composted manure is the choice.