Garden Like a Farmer

One thing we do in our gardens is we grow flowers, and vegetables, like large scale farmers.  We like to utilize natural methods that rejuvenate garden soil without using chemical fertilizers.

The first thing that commercial farmers do at the end of their growing season is to test their soil to see what nutrients are deficient.  One method is to send soil samples to your local farm bureau where most will test your soil for free.  This will give you a broad range of results and here in NC they provide what additives need to be added to your soil.  We also like to use inexpensive soil test kits from a company call RapiTest, that you can find on sale for around $10, that test NPK and Ph.

Nitrogen is the main deficient nutrient in garden beds and the one thing that farmers constantly try to fix.  On our garden beds we use the winter cover crop method to fix nitrogen in soil.  There are many types of cover crops that farmers use but for small garden beds we use crimson clover.  Here in NC we sow crimson clover in early fall when the temps are still in the 70's.  We mix one pack of our crimson clover cover crop with 8-10 cups of screened peat and lightly spread.  One pack of 5000 seeds will cover 200 square feet.

Crimson clover germinates very quickly with consistent moisture, so we try to sow it when we are expecting light rain.   We first till and clean our garden bed and the sow our clover/peat mixture on the surface of the soil.  It will grow quickly and soon fill out your garden bed.

Crimson clover will flower in about 60 days depending on how cold your winter is.  Let your clover grow until about 4 weeks before you plan to start introducing seedlings or direct sow your seeds.  At that point you will need to till in the clover and let it sit in your soil.  We use a walk behind tiller, you can also use a tiller attachment that goes on some garden trimmers.  We like to till twice before our seedlings go in.

Also based on your fall soil tests you might need to amend your soil for P, K, or Ph.  For phosphorus we use bone meal and for potassium you can sparingly use crushed epsom salts.  For Ph you can use garden sulfer to lower your ph or lime to raise your ph.  Most flowers are very forgiving on Ph and a test range of 5.5 to 7 will work.

Another item we add is a mineral supplement called Azomite which adds trace minerals to your soil.