Soil Remineralization

If you were following my Facebook feed last year, you know I am really interested in the idea of soil remineralization, as written about in Steve Solomon's The Intelligent Gardener. It might sound a bit intimidating, but really it is just a fancy term for testing your soil (which you are already in the habit of, right?) and customizing your fertilization based on the results, with the promised results of healthier, more disease and insect resistant plants. Plus, you get to fill out worksheets, and everybody likes worksheets, right?

Confession: I really do enjoy filling out worksheets.

So, last fall I started a little experiment with spinach to test the theory. Let's take a look at what happened.

Here is our first plot, in non-remineralized soil. Not too shabby for plants that have suffered through the winter. This plot actually has the largest plants, but it also got a significant head start on the other two.

Plot two, also ixnay on the emineralizationrey. Plants are much smaller, but were also planted later than plot one. (Oh how I wish I had jotted down the actual start dates, and could supply more than the vaguest of timelines)

And we finally come to plot three, the one that actually did receive the additional fertilizers. These plants have almost caught up in size to plot one, and are the healthiest of the bunch. Score! In addition, the soil in this plot has a much improved tilth, soft and spongy compared to the rest of the garden's solid clay. Thank you gypsum!

In summation: this test actually wasn't nearly scientific enough to gather any real results. In theory, all the plants had access to the same levels of macronutrients, and the only real difference was levels of micros and calcium in the soil. Of course without actually testing the soil plot by plot, plus taking into effect light levels, wind patterns, soil temps, yadda yadda yadda....

What I do know is that the results are close enough to what I want them to be to go all in with this process. The upsides are big, the downsides are small, and plus, I already bought all the ingredients.

Soon comes the fun part, the taste test. It will happen as soon as I can shake my current head cold long enough to actually taste anything.

Overwintered lettuce?

Last year was a bounty of lettuce. Thanks to my phones magical ability to remind me, I started new seeds every three weeks, without fail. Once the weather got too cold for the lettuce to grow, I just left the final seedlings in place, hoping they would survive the winter under cover.

Once it became clear I wasn't going to get around to covering the gardens in a timely manner, I expected they would die off first freeze.

Once they survived the first freeze and were still kicking, I figured they would surely die during the extended freezes, or the garden flooding, or being buried in snow for days. Granted,  none of which would have been an issue if the garden had been covered.

Well, here we are in March, and the majority of the lettuce has not only survived, but grown into small plants ready to fill out into full size heads in short order.

Hard to Kill, these lettuce Die Hard. 

So, what was the magic trick? I really can't say, it could have been any number of factors. Soil samples show that I have adequate levels of all the macro nutrients, the lettuce was certainly placed out at the right age, and despite harsh conditions through the winter, the sun also came out more than usual.

The variable I am most interested in though, is the kelp meal foliar spray I gave the plants this year. Kelp is supposed to provide the plants a ton of micronutrients, and also plant hormones that supposedly help them weather tough conditions and freezing.

Now normally, talk about plant hormones triggers my BS meter as yet another nonsensical claim that the gardening world is rife with, but it seems this one may have some merit. Hopefully I'll have the chance to do some further testing someday, set up a control group, etc.

For now, all I know is that I will be eating lettuce before I normally put out seeds.

The garden, finally covered just in time for late spring.

Finding inspiration

The garden season in Portland comes at the perfect time of year, it seems. By March, I've been thoroughly battered by running a small business through the holiday season, and exhausted from playing catch up and enduring tax season.

It is a time of year when I finally have a moment to catch my breath, but have been completely drained of inspiration and motivation to the point where I am not sure if I even want to continue gardening.

It is at this time of year when the garden rushes to my aid to help me escape the doldrums. The trees start budding and leafing out, the winter veggies demand to be eaten, the overwintering ones start growing again, perennial plants I thought lost to the winter pop back to life, herbs start making their first appearance, and the greatest of all, the asparagus starts rocketing from the ground.

Inspiration achieved, thanks garden.

Thrusting Spears of Motivation