My Complete Fertilizer

I’ve found it cheaper and better to make my own fertilizer. It’s cheaper because I can buy it in bulk and I can buy the components that I want. It’s better because I can choose the proportion to be just what I need.
My complete fertilizer recipe:

4 parts Nitrogen
- I typically use organic cottonseed meal because my soil is alkaline.
- If I have amended my soil enough so that it is slightly acidic, I use alfalfa meal.

2 parts Phosphorus
- I use organic blood meal

1 part Potassium
- I use Greensand

1 part Lime
- I use garden lime when I add this
- This also adds calcium

1/4 – 1/2 cup Epsom Salt

I don’t fuss too much about being exact with my measurements and I adjust the amounts based on what I am planting and what the soil needs.

I mix my fertilizer using a paper party cup to measure and an old crock pot, pot as the container. It stinks, but I think the plants love it.

Basil Problems

Fall plantings bring their own set of problems. In my head, I think that fall should be easier than summer; but that just isn’t so. It isn’t harder either; its just different.
Like, I can’t leave any brassicas uncovered in fall because they will be eaten to the ground by grass hoppers, leaf miners, and cabbage worms. It seems that I also deal with more fungi in the fall; I guess because its not hot enough to quickly dry the plants after a good rain.
This weekend we had two days of rain and look at my basil now.

I have never seen black spots on basil. Sheesh. My whole crop is infected. I will pluck all of these leaves and hope for the best.
The 3D looking black spots aren’t spots….their poop. Poop from this thing:


I’ve also pulled 4 hornworms off my tomatoes; this after only pulling one this whole summer.
Fall is easier in some instances because the pace is much slower, but fall brings its own set of challenges.

Don’t throw out that Okra tree

We don’t buy our kids many toys. And they don’t miss them one bit. The few toys they do have; they don’t play with. They play with ……. stuff. Pretty much anything other than toys.

You remember those okra trees plants we pulled out a few weeks ago? They were never composted.
They were taken off by a little boy…

I wasn’t sure what he had planned for them, but over the next few weeks I watched those two boys play with those okra plants until they had withered away to nothing.

Literally…till they withered away to nothing.

Kids are so interesting. But I’ll count this as their contribution to our sustainably modern lifestyle. Okra plants turned boy-hood entertainment. Who would of thunk it?

Anniversary means Garlic Time

I think all gardeners have some of their planting times associated with holidays. Valentine’s is when we plant potatoes, MLK is when we plant short-day onion plants, and…. my anniversary is when we plant Garlic.
SMH what has gardening done to me.
Garlic planting time is to be done as close to the autumn solstice as possible (in TX Z8a); which just happens to be fairly close to our anniversary. Unfortunately, it has been raining the last two days, so we’re a few days late on the garlic planting.
My garlic is all ready to go. I have seven varieties and I stored them separately.

I start by soaking my garlic. I soak with 1 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp fish emulsion to 1 gallon of water. I do this because these are the instructions that came with my garlic when I bought it. I have read that many don’t soak and have had no problem with fungi.

Last year, I did cold treat (refrigerate) some my garlic for 4-6 weeks before planting. I found absolutely no difference between bulb size of those which were cold treated and those which were not. So, this year I didn’t bother with cold treating.
After soaking for 24 hours, it is time to plant. I work compost into the soil (if needed) and I make a phosphorus band 2” from where I will plant the cloves. While I do this, I soak the garlic (skins removed) in rubbing alcohol for 3-4 minutes. This is to remove any more diseases that the previous soak didn’t get (per the instructions I received).

I then dig trenches to plant my bulbs 2-3” deep.

I cover and water.
I haven’t had any luck with leeks, so this year I planted more elephant garlic (which is a leek). I also planted some elephant garlic bulbils that I got with my elephant garlic harvest earlier this year.

I sure hope this year’s garlic turns out as good as last year’s did. Even with a mild winter, I had very nice sized bulbs for all varieties.