Feed the soil for the plants.
A garden can become depleted in minerals and vital nutrients, keeping the soil fed and healthy, will replenish these and allow them to be taken up by plants.
Remineralisation. Our soils are seriously depleted, it is worth looking at products that remineralise the soil to increase its health and vitality, which can then made available in our food.
We use rock dust in the autumn, which then will have time to become assimilated into the soil to provide amazing nutrition to our next years crops.
Seaweed meal. This is great for balancing a garden and making minerals more available to plants.
Manures/composts
As mentioned earlier composts and manures, applied in the spring to avoid winter leaching, can give plants vital nourishment as well as soil conditioning.
Build compost heaps or bins to recycle all your garden and kitchen waste (not cooked waste as it attracts rats), and create beautiful compost for your garden.
Manure can be dug from friendly farms or horse establishments. If not from organic farms it is good to then leave it to compost some more on your plot for a few months until any chemical residues have broken down.
Green manures: These are sown in gaps and after crops to keep the soil covered, then dug in before flowering to improve the soil fertility and structure. Phacelia is a green manure that we leave to flower however as it is a fabulous bee attractant!
Leaf mould
This is a wonderful low nutrient soil conditioner, make leafmould in wire compost bins by collecting the leaves and leaving them for a couple of years. The resulting composted material can be used on the beds and in compost mixes and is a wonderful use of a ‘waste’ resource.
Blood, fish and bone are available from garden suppliers and can also be useful food supplements, use according to the instructions.
Liquid feed
Worm ‘juice’ from a wormery, Comfrey or nettle liquid feeds are easy to make and give a nitrogen rich boost to plants that need this.
