Lowly kale has a modern cousin that brings vivid color and food to early spring gardens. Flowering kale features dense and leafy heads in exotic purple and pink foliage as well as some odd thread-leaf forms that offer bold textural differences. You can blend kale with early season edible flowers like violas and calendula to make rainbow salads from a single potted composition. To make sure all edible leaves and petals are chemical-free, fill pots and troughs with Black Gold Waterhold Cocoblend Potting Soil before planting your kale. Then refresh the soil and replant with heat lovers when the kale bolts to flower around June.
Tag: organic
Grow Organic: All or Part
Call it botanical profiling. It’s gone on since the beginnings of agriculture. Tomatoes, corn and lettuce belong in the organic food garden. Flowers grow in the ornamental garden. The primary reason for such a division is that food growers are all about a clean, edible harvest. Flower growers put the emphasis on an abundance of perfect blooms throughout the season. They often use synthetic fertilizers to achieve that end. This is not necessary. Continue reading “Grow Organic: All or Part”
Keys to Developing Quality Garden Soil
Whether you’re growing a family food garden or cultivating your favorite roses, the key to developing quality garden soil is always organic matter. This material is vital to plant life whether you are growing all organic, partially so, or using standard horticultural practices. Consider this the panacea to many problems that routinely plague home gardens during the growing season.
1. Organic matter is vital to improving soil structure. When mixed into clay soils it opens up the tiny particles of heavy clay soils to help them drain, and it helps to retain such drainage over time. This is also the case for adding organic matter to porous soils, which helps retain moisture like a million tiny sponges. This first step is accomplished with Black Gold Garden Soil for structural changes to soil for fantastic organic food and outstanding flowers.
2. Organic matter feeds microbes. When organic matter is partially decomposed and fine textured as is the case with fine textured Black Gold Garden Compost Blend, think of it as fuel for the huge populations of microorganisms that live in your soil. This invisible life force in topsoil includes fungi, bacteria and algae. They work symbiotically with your plants to help them grow faster and fruit more abundantly. Microbes in the soil are much like intestinal flora in the human body. Both are directly related to a healthy functioning immune system. Organic matter is Nature’s perfect pro-biotic.
3. Organic matter adds fertility. All soils contain nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, but there’s not enough to feed a garden year after year. Make it a practice to fortify the soil each year with a healthy dose of Black Gold Soil Conditioner, which offers organic matter as well as slow release fertilizer in a single all-organic package. It contains plenty of compost for organic matter, but what boosts this amendment is a variety of natural nutrient sources such as kelp and guano. Kelp is vital to adding lesser known micro-nutrients thereby resolving any lack of trace elements. Where Soil Conditioner may not be available, combine Black Gold Garden Compost Blend with healthy additions of a starter and transplant fertilizer for similar results.
Remember: organic matter isn’t forever. Whether you add Black Gold Natural & Organic Soil Builder or Black Gold Garden Compost Blend to your garden, consider this your soil’s annual meal. Be generous to ensure the entire garden receives a good sized portion. During the growing season, this organic matter is broken down and used by both microbes and plants. Unless you replace it on a regular basis, your garden will not produce the same results the following year. Without regular applications, soil may revert to heavy clay, the microbe population will drop off and fertility declines.
Plan on two large feedings a year with smaller applications as needed in between. Apply the largest quantity in spring before planting time. Till it in before hand so microbes have time to increase their numbers prior to arrival of plants and seed. Use it again as a summer mulch around individual plants to retain moisture and keep roots cool. Then till in a final dose at the end of the year, which feeds microbes all winter.
Stick with Black Gold quality organic matter and you’ll find the keys to perfect garden soil in the palm of your hand. Whether it’s structure, fertility or to grow microbe populations, the result is always beneficial, your yields always abundant.
Teaming With Microbes
With organic gardening, it’s all about soil microbes. What we do to enrich our soils with organic matter and humus helps to feed this population of invisible organisms. Their presence enhances fertility to help plants grow healthier with a stronger root and immune system. To truly understand how important this microbe-plant relationship is to your food garden, read Jeff Lowenfels’ outstanding book: Teaming with Microbes (Timber Press). It is the modern gardener’s guide to the soil food web, what it is, how to protect it and why it’s essential to use organic fertilizers, amendments and potting soils that support this vital population.
Plant Your Organic Garden
Once your soil is fed with natural & organic fertilizers and amendments and tilled, will you grow your veggies from seed or seedlings? The answer depends on the kinds of plants you choose to grow.
Fast growing plants that have large seeds planted deeper down are usually sown directly into garden soil. These include corn, squash, cucumbers, melons, sunflowers, beans or peas. When you buy your seed, know that every packet is marked with its year just like a food expiration date. Make sure yours is labeled for the current year so the seed is sure to sprout quickly.
Slower to germinate plants with smaller seeds such as peppers, tomatoes, broccoli and greens are more easily started indoors ahead of time. These can also be purchased as seedlings at the garden center. Bonnie Plants offers a wide range of organically grown varieties in sizes from seedling four-pack to gallon pot plants already on the way toward flower and fruit. The price dictates which you choose. They are grown in peat pots that can be planted directly into the soil for minimal root disturbance. If you can’t find organically grown seedlings, buy a standard nursery-grown seedling and raise it organically for the same result.
Build Organic Garden Soil with Black Gold
Building organic garden soil is the same as working the soil for any other kind of garden except for one thing: you must feed the soil with OMRI Listed products for organic gardening. The ground below your feet is not just dirt but a whole living breathing universe unto itself. Within those soil mineral particles are populations of microscopic bacteria, fungi, yeasts, protozoa and algae. They are collectively known as microbes, which feed on the remnants of dead plants, also known as organic matter. Organic gardens depend on high microbe populations to make plants grow strong naturally, resist pests and diseases, and produce a bumper crop of food or flowers.
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Turning, Tilling, and Amending Your Organic Garden
Gardens can be turned by hand or mechanically tilled. The results and investments of time and energy are very different. Sometimes they can be done in conjunction, other times one or the other is more appropriate.
If you don’t have a spading fork, now is the time to buy one. This unique tool looks like a pitch fork, but the tines are straight and much thicker. For anyone serious about mixing an organic garden by hand, this is your most important purchase. Do not scrimp on quality because a good fork will last for decades. The spading fork turns soil more easily because the tines break up clods automatically, unlike a shovel which actually helps to cement heavy soil together.
A rototiller an essential workhorse used for larger in-ground gardens, tilling thoroughly and deeply with minimal effort.Tillers are too heavy for raised beds and won’t turn tightly enough to be of good use. Lightweight Mantis tillers are the exception, but they are still no replacement for the fork.
At this stage of garden preparation, three mistakes are common. Gardeners often fail to get enough amendment, they don’t till or turn the soil deep enough, and they work the amendments into just the top few inches of soil. Roots need deep, fertile soil for best root development, so the deeper your soil is worked and amended, the better.
Getting Started
The first step is rough-turning by hand or rough tilling. It eliminates compaction that built up over winter from rain and snow. Some gardeners let the ground sit open for a week after rough-tilling before going to the next step. This allows time to fully aerate the soil and exposes underground pests so they die or can be easily removed.
To get the most of the rototiller, go slow to allow it to dig down and open that lower layer of soil. When tilling by hand, till at least as deep as the length of the spading fork tines. The result will be a rough, irregular surface that allows amendments to settle deep into the nooks and crannies.
The next step is to spread your Black Gold Garden Compost Blend and other amendments evenly over the entire surface. For in-ground gardens, this is the a-ha moment when you realize you haven’t got nearly enough to cover it all at least three inches deep. Raised bed gardeners may discover they’ve overfilled the beds with soil, and there’s with no free board left on the edges to contain the additional organic matter. Be sure to resolve these issues before proceeding, and use this formula to determine the amount of amendment to add over a given area.
Amendment Application Formula
([area to cover] ft2 x [depth in inches desired] x 0.0031 = ___ yd3).
Example: If you wanted to cover a 20 square foot area with 2 inches of compost, the result would be: 20 ft2 x 2 inches of compost x 0.0031 = 2.48 yd3.
Till the amendments in as deeply as you can, then do it again in the opposite direction. This is to catch any undisturbed strips or pockets missed between previous passes. When using a spading fork, strive for even tillage, working backwards across the soil, so you aren’t standing on newly turned ground.
After tilling the last time, use your heavy garden rake to level the soil, removing the remnants of last year’s plants. If you are planting from seed, go over it again with a fine leaf rake to get the surface ready to be sown.
Because organic gardening is about feeding the soil, consider yourself the chef. Tilling in amendments is the process of serving a healthy meal. When this all comes together in a gourmet creation, the miracle of life in your organic garden begins.
BLACK GOLD® Natural & Organic Potting Soil
Black Gold Natural & Organic Potting Soil is so versatile it works for everything from hanging baskets to raised vegetable beds. This is not just any soil, it’s a precise blend of everything your plants need to look their best and produce abundantly. Because it’s listed by the Organic Materials Review Institute, you can be sure your organic food crops grown in this enriched soil remain blessedly chemical free.
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Better Results All Season Long with Black Gold®
With the advent of Black Gold® All Purpose, you are now able to enjoy the benefits of a premium quality potting soil with a fertilizer that will feed your plants for up to six months. Sun Gro sells this same fertilizer product to professional growers. By incorporating Multicote® into your potting soil, your plants will have a consistent supply of nutrients throughout the entire season.
Multicote®, a controlled release fertilizer, has been coated with a polymer that slowly breaks down to release the nutrients over time. Unlike other controlled release fertilizers in the marketplace, Multicote® will not release excessive nutrients in higher temperatures, thus ensuring your plant will thrive no matter what the weather. This baseline of fertilizer allows your plants to grow all season long, not just when you remember to fertilize. Additional fertilizations with a liquid fertilizer, starting a couple weeks after planting, will ensure your plants get all the nutrients they need, particularly if your plants are heavy feeders.
Ideal for all types of plants, Black Gold® All Purpose with Multicote® is a great choice for house plants, patio containers and hanging baskets. Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss with earthworm castings, forest humus, compost and pumice combine to provide your plants with both moisture retention and good drainage. Since this potting soil has a higher amount of peat moss, it is ideal for gardeners looking to reduce their fertilizer and water usage.
Think of all the benefits – you start with a premium potting soil; add a controlled release fertilizer that will lessen the frequency of fertilizing; and you get improved plant performance by using Black Gold® All Purpose Potting Soil with Multicote®.
Earthworm Castings (The Scoop on the Poop)
The term “worm castings” seems to confuse everyone but the plants. Earthworms have been hard at work for centuries rejuvenating soils and helping to convert various types of organic matter into one of nature’s best soil conditioners. Black Gold® has had worm castings as the cornerstone of its product line long before worm castings became the vogue in gardening. Our Earthworm Castings are OMRI Listed, making them a cut above the rest for both traditional and organic gardening.
Black Gold® Earthworm Castings contain a fertilizer charge. In fact, they are so nutrient-charged that we actually have to register them as a fertilizer in some states. Minerals and nutrients from earthworm castings are in a water-soluble form, making them readily available to plants.
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