Your cart is currently empty!
Tag: Soil test
-
Vegetable troubleshooting workshop prepares you for spring
Vegetable troubleshooting workshop prepares you for spring
Apr 10, 2017 | Lawn & Garden
BOULDER COUNTY –Pursuing the dream of the perfect vegetable garden is a Don Quixote-esque exercise in Colorado. If the heat doesn’t crisp your crops, an unseasonable snow squall freezes them; hail, micro-bursts, and gale force winds are common. Yet still, we persist in unvanquished hope that the garden will be effortless this year.
Mother Nature always brings us back to earth. Insects and diseases that overwinter in fallen leaves or garden detritus return each season, rising from the debris to feast on our vegetables. Like a zombie horde they munch through the vegetables like a buffet of brains.
Gardening through the challenges is just how we roll, but if you’re looking to increase your success, the best advice is: know your enemy. Colorado State University Extension is helping you do that with its Vegetable Troubleshooting Workshop, Friday and Saturday, May 12 and 13, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Best Western Plus Plaza Convention Center, 1900 Ken Pratt Blvd., in Longmont (https://2017-vegetable-garden-troubleshooting.eventbrite.com). The two-day workshop is designed to cover all of the thugs, bugs, and disorderly conduct that can occur in the vegetable patch.
Understanding your soil is the foundation of successful gardening, and Dr. Jean Reeder, retired soil researcher, kicks off the workshop with Soil Savvy, a look at the most fundamental component of a healthy garden. This class discusses how to interpret the data provided by a soil test, and how to incorporate knowledge of basic soil properties into management practices.
Reeder then dives into fertilizers and amendments, demystifying the differences between organic amendments and organic fertilizers, organic and inorganic fertilizers, and mulches and cover crops. She’ll discuss the different types of amendments and fertilizers available, criteria for evaluating the quality of an amendment, and determining whether or not plants would benefit them.
IF YOU GO:
WHAT: Vegetable Troubleshooting Workshop
WHEN: Friday and Saturday, May 12 and 13, 9 a.m. to
4:30 p.m. (single-day purchase not available).
WHERE: Best Western Plus Plaza Convention Center, 1900 Ken Pratt Blvd., Longmont.
TICKETS: $75 plus EventBrite service fees, available at
https://2017-vegetable-garden-troubleshooting.eventbrite.com.
Weeds, diseases, and operator errors that seem to spring out of nowhere are topics covered by Dr. Tamla Blunt, Director of CSU’s Plant Diagnostic Clinic in Ft. Collins. Where weeds come from and what they want, plus which ones are common and controllable are discussed, before Blunt talks about spores, molds, fungus, bacteria, and viruses.She’ll also discuss problems caused by non-living factors, called abiotic disorders, some of the most elusive problems to track down. Like Goldilocks, sometimes the plant’s worst enemy is that it’s too hot or too cold, when it wants it to be just right. Environmental, nutritional, or operator error all play into whether plants thrive or die.
Rounding out the discussion of thugs is myself, talking about insects, both pest and beneficial. Not everyone enjoys a bit of protein in their salad that comes with six legs, but not every bug is an enemy. Learn which ones are munching marauders and which ones are the good guys, and how to control – or encourage – them.
We won’t send you off on a low note, though, so stay until the end when we discuss Post Harvest Handling of your bounty. Get tips for treating your produce to the care it deserves after it’s plucked from the vine.
Do you have a passion for potatoes and an interest in research? CSU Extension is looking for participants to trial potatoes in their home garden. Participants must be willing to grow two types of potatoes, 10 plants of each type for a total of 20 plants and fill out a form on growing, cooking, and eating the potatoes. For details or to sign up, e-mail [email protected].
http://athomecolorado.com/2017/04/10/vegetable-troubleshooting-workshop-prepares-spring/
On – 10 Apr, 2017 By crandalla
-
Fertilizing Corn In The Home Garden: An Organic Approach
As garden crops go, corn is among the heaviest feeders. To support tall growth and good ear formation, corn crops often need supplemental additions of nitrogen; there’s typically not enough of this nutrient available in garden soils to support such a large-statured crop. Fertilizing corn in the home garden is an essential summer chore, if you want a hearty crop of plump ears.
When To Fertilize Corn In The Summer
Test your garden soil every few years to ensure its pH is at the correct level to support the growth of most common garden crops, including corn. The best pH for most vegetables is between 6.0 and 6.5, and ensuring your soil’s pH fits in this range improves the availability of most nutrients to your corn plants.
That said, even when the soil’s pH is in the suitable range, supplemental nitrogen fertilizer is often necessary when growing corn. Adding yearly additions of well-composted manures and using legume cover crops will add a good bit of nitrogen to the soil, but when your corn plants reach two feet tall, it’s time for fertilizing corn in the home garden.
Organic Products For Fertilizing Corn
If you want to avoid using chemical-based fertilizers in your veggie patch, you’ll need to turn to organic nitrogen fertilizers to give your corn plants a boost. The following sources of nitrogen are plant- or animal-based and require soil microbes to break them down into a form of nitrogen the plants can use. Thankfully, upon adding one of these fertilizers to the corn patch, all the necessary soil microbes work very quickly to break down these products and release the nitrogen to your growing corn plants.
- Alfalfa meal: Made from dried alfalfa plants, this plant-based fertilizer is about 4 percent nitrogen. It’s often used as an animal feed supplement, too, and it promotes a balance of healthy soil microbes.
- Cottonseed meal: A coarsely granulated product made from the hulls of cottonseeds, cottonseed meal is about 6 percent nitrogen. Once in the soil, it rapidly breaks down and provides a burst of nitrogen to plants within a few days of application.
- Blood meal: Derived from dried blood from slaughterhouses, blood meal contains about 12 percent nitrogen. It acts quickly in the soil and begins to provide nitrogen to plants almost immediately.
- Feather meal: Another animal byproduct from slaughterhouses, feather meal contains approximately 14 percent nitrogen. It’s inexpensive, though it takes a bit longer for the microbes to mineralize than some of the other organic nitrogen sources discussed here.
- Soybean meal: With a nitrogen content of about 7 percent, soybean meal is another option for fertilizing corn in the home garden.
- Fish fertilizers: Liquid fish fertilizers as well as granular fish-based fertilizers are good nitrogen sources for the corn patch. Though they can smell bad, fish-based fertilizers are mineralized by soil microbes very rapidly. Depending on the formulation, they can contain between 5 percent and 10 percent nitrogen.
How To Fertilize Corn
Adding nitrogen to your corn plants is as simple as side-dressing the rows at the recommended application rate shown on the product’s label when the plants are approximately two feet tall. Lightly scratch it into the soil’s surface so the soil microbes can quickly access it, and then water it in.
A word of caution: it is possible, of course, to overfertilize corn plants. Do not add any more fertilizer than recommended on the label. A single application is all that’s necessary, except in the case of extreme nitrogen deficiencies. Conduct a soil test every few years to ensure all essential plant nutrients are in the proper balance.
http://www.hobbyfarms.com/fertilizing-corn-home-garden-organic/
On – 22 Jun, 2017 By Jessica Walliser
