March 27th, 2024 Fertilizers and Planting Tables

Our new Strawberry rows

We're spending the year working on things which improve growth, which are not the soil itself, as our New Year's Resolution Project. A few weeks back I spent a few words describing how much of what we will do involves using mycorrhizal (root fungus) powder to increase our effective root systems. We began planting right after my last post so here's a short update: 

We learned last year that Blood Meal as source of organic nitrogen works, even if a bit slowly. We also learned that Fish Bone Meal worked to soften transplant shock, allowing our plants to recover after being planted and begin growing more quickly. After I wrote the last post we began adding the mycorrhizal powder in planting holes along with a bit of Fish Bone Meal when we planted our ten new rows of strawberry plants. A week later we have really great growth to show for the effort. In the case of the seven hanging baskets we planted, to use some plants we had no place for, plant growth is explosive. The Strawberries we have planted this year have doubled in size in just over a week. So this part of the experiment has worked well so far. But the Mycorrhizal fungi hasn't really had time to develop effectively so things will likely get better in the next few weeks. Since we put those strawberries in the ground we have begun planting seed in the greenhouse and there's quite a few new things going on in there too.

We're trying a new way to plant onions

In an attempt to speed seed sprouting up a bit, maybe get a bit lower seed attrition, we began soaking our seed in a one percent solution of hydrogen peroxide. The idea here is that hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) has one more oxygen atom than water and this spurs seed into sprouting quicker. There's a secondary benefit to this as well. Hydrogen peroxide kills off any viruses or fungi living on the surface of the seeds so we aren't putting bad stuff into the soil which might retard growth of cause plant diseases. In one case, the feminized Maui Pineapple Chunk Kush marijuana seeds sprouted five out of five. Since this is a eight dollar seed which we usually only get a three of five return on we are doing really well.  In three days we had sprouts, in five days we had secondary leaves. We're also getting a much higher rate of sprouting with tomato seeds too. Since we just planted about four hundred seeds this week we don't have better numbers to report, but it looks pretty good from this point. 

Five days after soaking
and we have leaves.

I began sifting the potting soil we made last year before packing the flats for seeding this year and this did some good things. The first is that the remaining planting soil is excellent with no rocks, twigs, leaves, or bugs to work around. We pack the flat, or the pots on the flat, and then dust them with mycorrhizal powder and fish bone meal. Then we sift a light coating of planting soil on top and pat the thing down tightly. Afterward we poke a hole in the surface and put seed in, then sift a bit more soil on top to close up the holes.  All of these are new practices, so the outcomes aren't known.

I have been studying next steps for a few weeks. One of the next steps is to "up pot" the sprouts into larger pots while we wait for Spring heat to arrive and outdoor planting to begin. Eventually we will take the greenhouse starts we have in smaller cells and move them into bigger pots. To accomplish this better we found two new organic fertilizers to help kick things into higher gear. The first is a product called Garden Tone, which is a fish bone meal based potting fertilizer. We will mix this into the soil we pack into the larger pots and then move our sprouts into them to feed the plants once they get past their transplant shock. The fish bone meal shortens the time it takes to get past transplanting shocks so once things get growing again we will start root watering using a light solution of Chilean Nitrate fertilizer, in solution. 

Our new planting routine in action

Chilean Nitrate is the only high nitrogen fertilizer that comes plant ready, meaning that the  plant can use the stuff right away.  We have been using Blood Meal for nitrogen, but Blood Meal takes four to six weeks to become plant ready, so this is better. 

I will soon be building a sink in the greenhouse to soak fertilize flats in and then wash produce later.  Soaking the flats in a half inch of fertilizer water will feed the plants very well without the problems of leaf watering. We will drain the excess fertilized water off into a watering can and use it to feed plants already in the garden, so there won't be much waste. We have a few choices of sinks sitting out in storage, I think the laundry sink we used in the Tiny Home Cabin will work the best because it's lighter and smaller. 

All in all I am very happy with the results we have so far and hopeful that our new plans will give us the early results we need. The goal is to make this place profitable from produce and we seem to be headed in the right direction.