Thread: My project
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Old 02-12-2008, 12:47 AM   #55 (permalink)
chong
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Default Re: My project

Quote:
Originally Posted by microfarmer View Post
And I thought a balanced (15-15-15) was s'posed to be ideal. Man, where'd I get my information? Wouldn't you want a higher number than 1 for your P ammendments even if not all the way to 15?

I believe one material is not perfect and I always blend many nutrients into my beds. I use bat, chicken, steer, horse and worm poop, compost, kelp meal, blood meal, bone meal, wood ashes, alfalfa, and the trub, yeast, and grains from my brewery. I have yet to bring home the greensand, but I do have some decomposed granite instead that'll go in this year. Oh, and don't forget the crushed oyster shells and gypsum treatments already in...



Meet Pete!

If you look closly, you'll see his by-proucts under the bananas...

There are a lot of gardeners that advocate a balanced fertilizer ratio, i.e., 10-10-10, 5-5-5, etc. If you use a weaker solution than what's on the label, you can be sure to get pretty reasonable results, without burning your plants. But because the P component is relatively high, there is a risk of over fertilizing many plants because they normally do not require as much of the P as say, roses. Chrysanthemums for one, require very high K than N, and even less of the P component. I bought over 150 lbs. of 'Mums special mix by Peters(14-8-27) to use for my bananas and other fruit bearing plants. Last year, I had my daughter water my plants via my E-Z Flo thru the hose automatic plant feeder. When I came back from CA after three months, I found my green house plants with almost all yellow leaves, with the yard plants not too far behind on the yellow leaves. I then started using my old bucket system using MirAcid (30-10-10) and within a little over a week or so, the leaves turned green to almost 90%. My prized Joy Perfume plants started to show buds again.

Some time ago(before the internet was invented by Al Gore), I read something that stuck to my mind, where the iideal ratio for bananas was 2-1-4. I looked and I looked and found that most citrus and avocado formutions were close to this. Then one day, I was checking out the Mellinger catalog from OH, and there it was - a formula for hydroponics: 12-8-21. They guaranteed it will not burn any plant.

Well, I can't argue with Pete. As a kid, again, this was what we used to feed roses. I remember that, as embarrassing as it was, we had to collect road apples along a 10 block radius around our house for my Mom's roses. And we didn't even have to compost them. We just gaged how much to put on each plant. And you should see the size of them roses. Even though, roses are hard to grow in the Philippines because it is too hot!

You see, up until the late mid-60's, the more popular mode of transportation at my Mom's hometown, where I went to high school 225 miles south of Manila, was horse drawn carriage, that we call the "Calesa" or the "Carritela" (2 different styles of carriages). They usually have a sack to catch the poop, but the drivers don't bother to empty them until they go home. So, throughout the day, they overflow all over the place. Picking them up then, in retrospect, was our contribution to community service, since we were minimizing street litter. Though we did not collect the mashed ones (LOL).

Last edited by chong : 02-12-2008 at 12:51 AM. Reason: Missed something.
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