Overfeeding is easily done. Surrounded as we are, by seductive marketing and miracle soil food, home gardeners fertilise wildly.
You’re unsure what you’re doing. That’s all.
And its totally understandable – most of us didn’t grow up with our hands in the soil, and when we look for answers, we find way too much conflicting information.
Today I hope to bring you clarity and ease, as I explain why you feed + how much to feed (you’ll be surprised!).
Why + how
Soil, is, by design, self sustaining – nourished via the cycling of all beings that live in it and on it: plants, animals, fungi, bacteria et all.
Hmmm, if soil’s self sufficient, Why then am I feeding?
- To redress the small deficit created when you take the food part of your crop, home for dinner. A gap appears because the plant isn’t recycled in its entirety.
Ok. I see the gap. So how do I bridge it?
- Good news is you don’t bridge it, biology in the soil does – trillions of microscopic life forms that team up with plants and together, sort everything from nourishment to immunity. Your role is to create a garden environment in which they enjoy to live.
How helpful are they! I want them on board! How do I create an environment such as this?
- With homemade compost, mulch and a diversity of plants (living mulches + greencrops.) Take care to use spray free material – pesticide/ herbicide/ antibiotic/ wormer residues kill life.
From this simple, but potent regime, humus is created. A spongy reservoir of nutrients + water that makes a stable baseline from which your soil and plants grow ever stronger. Now you’re in the money, my friends, from here, your best garden rises: less pests, less disease, good vigor and steady cropping.
Here are the nuts and bolts.
Homemade compost
Compost doesn’t directly feed the plants, compost supports the biology which in turn feeds plants.
Homemade compost, friends, is chalk and cheese from bought compost. Making your own is well worth it and it isn’t as arduous as you think because you don’t need near as much as you think you do, and because I can set you up for ease and speed.
Bump it up your priority list, higher than vacuuming if you please. Make some. If only to mix into your bought compost in order to improve it.
How much compost does my soil need?
But a humble amount. Compost is really concentrated, you don’t need much. Which is a relief, seeing as how much a pile shrinks!
- If your soil is in good heart, a fine layer is all it needs, applied once per rotation.
Compost fits into my crop rotation like this:
GREENCROP ⮕ COMPOST ⮕ HEAVY FEEDER ⮕ LIGHT FEEDER ⮕ START AGAIN/ GREENCROP
- If your soil isn’t in good heart (check with this DIY mini soil test), spread a layer of compost twice in your rotation, before the heavy and the light feeder. A temporary measure until your soil comes good. Which it will.
If you don’t have enough compost, vermicasting’s are an excellent addition to extend your supply.
Mulch
Mulch is essential. The grand design is to keep soil covered as protection from the elements (there’s an entire ecosystem down there remember!), soil health goes backwards fast when left bare.
Mulch is also a smorgasbord of future food – grow a diverse biology with diverse mulch.
Keep soil covered with either:
- A mixture of homegrown/ foraged plant matter spread on top the compost. Homemade is safest/ best. Mulch is dragged into the soil by worms and beetles, chewed up + pooped out to feed yet more soil life and eventually become humus. So much nourishment from this simplest of practises!
- A living mulch, my very favourite.
Using plants to build soil
Plants are powerful soil builders. Which makes complete sense, right – there they are, cloaking the earth. All those roots! Imagine! Of course they have purpose – many purposes. Nature is way too cunning to let an opportunity like that sneak by.
Living plants build soil:
- Roots and the area around roots (the rhizosphere) are busy places. A diverse range of biology come for the sugars that are exuded there, trading them with the plants for minerals, immunity, information – whatever the plant requested. Cos yes, that’s exactly how it works.
Dead plants build soil:
- Plants are easily broken down into humus when recycled as mulch or homemade compost. No other organic matter incorporates as seamlessly.
Incorporate greencrops into your rotation, as many ways as you can:
- Use greencrops as part of your crop rotation – a great way to reduce your need for compost
- Sow mixed greencrops with heavy feeder crops
- Plant crops amongst established greencrops
Use plants to strengthen your soil/ garden as a whole:
- Grow loads of perennials around the outside edges of your vegie patch
- Make compost using mostly plant matter
- Make mulch using homegrown/ spray free plant matter
- Grow a diverse garden! A big mix of shrubs/ trees/ flowers/ greencrops and crops
Give your soil a grace period as it adjusts. A lot must change below for above ground health to manifest.
Give yourself a grace period too – it’s a big mindshift, huge – one I am still on. Ease your way into it.
