Supplies

Soil Amendments:

Amendments are fertilizers and minerals that one can add to their garden's soil or berry patch that will help correct deficiencies (if they exist) and encourage the little animals that are the denizens of your soil to thrive.  Here in our part of Indiana, we have hilly ground with average to low fertility soils.  To compensate for our poorer soils, we utilize organic fertilizers and rock powders.  Listed on this page are some amendments you may want to purchase, if you are unable to find them in your area (check feed stores and garden centers). 

Alfalfa pellets/meal

This plant-based fertilizer is the standard for our farm and nursery plants.  It has an NPK rating equivalent to  2-0.2-1.3, and releases nitrogen slowly over the season.  It does not burn plants, but must be incorporated into the soil at planting, or placed under mulch if top-dressing, to keep it from spoiling (it has between an 18-28% protein content, so it is very attractive to some insects if left lying in a sodden mass on top of the ground). 
For new blueberry plantings, use about 1-2 pounds per planting hole, and brambles can use about a half-pound.  If fall planting before plants have gone dormant (August-September), withhold top-dressing fertilizers until spring to reduce winter cold damage to twig tips.  Apply at the rate of 8-10 pounds per 100 square feet for vegetable gardens.  You should be able to find alfalfa pellets (or meal) locally at your feed stores.  It usually comes in a 50# bag, but if you ask, they may sell some by weight to you.   Please specify pellets or meal.  Pellets are best used with larger plants and gardens, meal is better for potting mixes and seedlings. 
Price: $17.00 for 12# (includes shipping).

Kelp Meal

This is another plant-based fertilizer that dove-tails beautifully with alfalfa.  You can look up kelp meal on the internet and read all about it, but I'll give you the skinny here.  Kelp is a plant that provides a complete micronutrient supply, properly proportioned, to the soil.  There is no guesswork about this element or that, because kelp provides it.  Now, that sounds great, but it also means you don't want to apply too much, because that could create a micronutrient imbalance.  This could lead to stunted plant growth, lack of production, and even death (sounds like the side-effects for some our pharmaceuticals, eh?).  Yet, kelp meal in and of itself is entirely safe to handle,  and we use and sell a livestock-feed grade of kelp.  "Everything in good measure" is a phrase to which we could all pay more attention.  When applied at the rate of one pound per 100 square feet per year, you are investing your soil with just the right amount of support.  Many of our soils lack a balanced micronutrient profile, due to poor agricultural/arboricultural history.  With kelp, you can help to restore the micronutrient cycle in your soil.  I don't use this on our blueberry shrubs (kelp supports neutralizing processes that will raise  pH ), but everywhere else I do.  New bramble plantings get 2-4 Tbsp., and vegetable growing areas get a1/2# to 1#  per 100 square feet, depending on how long they have been in production. 
  Price: $45.95 for 12#, $27.95 for 5# (includes shipping).

Soft Rock Phosphate granules

This is a rock powder that provides fruiting plants with the additional phosphorous needed for healthy, regular fruit production.  Phosphorous also helps with early root formation and growth, essential in establishing the plant rapidly after transplanting.   The granules we sell are a natural colloidal soft phosphate that contains 20%P2O2 and 20% calcium (as well as some other minor trace minerals).  Phosphorous is needed by all plants for healthy cell growth and division, photosynthesis, and respiration, and can be applied at the rate of 1-2# per 100 square feet.  We usually add a half cup of granules to each planting hole for new berry plantings.  Natural colloidal phosphate also helps to promote the growth of earthworms and soil bacteria that aerate and enrich the soil, unlike chemically treated phosphorous.  Naturally slow release, it has a 2% solubility (what is rapidly available).
Price:  $35.95 for 12#, $22.00 for 5# (price includes shipping).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More information on organic fertilizers:

    Organic fertilizers support the healthy growth of soil biota when used properly.  Just like all things that are healthy to use, overuse or misuse can seriously affect your plants health.  This said, it is much harder to damage your plants or the soil microbes' habitat with organic fertilizers than it is with chemical fertilizers. 

     Chemical fertilizers are primarily salts that dissolve in water, and can be absorbed by plant roots.  Organic fertilizers have some water soluble properties, but mostly they contain different qualities of carbon and minerals that microbes in the soil, as well as worms and mycelia fungi, can feed upon.  Their waste products then become involved in the process that develops humus.   

 Humus is what determines the health of a soil, and maintains the balance of life around plant roots.  Organic fertilizers feed this process, which in turn creates a healthy ecosystem for plant roots to grow and thrive.  This is why, especially in poor soils (low humus, low microbe activity, low fungi count), it can be hard to see the effect of organic fertilizers, because the microbes that utilize and transform them are not present at healthy levels.   

  A great source of natural, readily available iron is in stinging nettles (Urtica dioica).  To make a stiff drink rich in iron for your plants, just cram a bunch of the plant (stems and leaves) into a stock pot and brew for fifteen minutes.  You can also just blender them up in water, and poor over the soil.  Adding some stems and leaves to the mulch will also introduce iron, but it will take a little longer to reach the roots.

  If you strain your tea, you can spray it on as a foliar amendment.  Blueberries are especially good at absorbing iron through their leaves.  I have used nettle tea to turn some potted blueberries that had turned yellow (no iron in potting media), back to green, and it only took 4 days (two applications of tea).  Nettles really are an amazing plant in the organic growers toolbox.  It does take time to make and apply, but it is chemical free and just what your plant needs.

 Comfrey is another great home fertilizer, very high in nitrogen, with good levels of phosphorous and potassium, and a range of micronutrients.  I often think of comfrey as "land kelp", as it has such a rich and useful profile.  It is also very easy to grow, and does not get browsed heavily by deer.  
To make a comfrey foliar or liquid fertilizer, fill a 5 gallon plastic bucket to the brim, stuffing as much of the plant into the bucket as you can.  Then put the lid on it, nice and tight.  Put it in the shade, and leave if for a month or so.  When you open it up, keep your head back (don't peer in with your head right over the bucket...you'll stagger back!)  
 Wearing rubber gloves, pull out the decayed plant material, then decant the black juice into a storage bucket.  It will have a strong ammonia smell, which means high nitrogen.  I filter this fluid for spray equipment, and add 1-2 ounces per gallon.  Stores quite a while if you keep it sealed.  You can make a spray that has added iron by making nettles 20% of the bucket contents.