by Wally Richards

SAVINGS HOW TO FEED YOUR GARDENS

You can go out and purchase expensive manmade fertilisers which I do admit feed your plants but at a nasty cost as they destroy the soil life which are the beneficial microbes, fungi and earth worms so then you end up in a vicious circle which conventional commercial growers and farmers have, you need more fertilisers and more expense to obtain reasonable growth and produce.

Then the further downside is that the plants are weak and unhealthy and we know what happens to plants like that in Nature. All of the cleaners of Nature; pests and diseases come in to take the weak and sickly plants out, making way for the healthy.

The best way of obtaining the best nutrition for your plants and is by feeding the soil!

Feed and produce healthy soil and your plants will thrive.

Any animal manure can be used which actually include cats and dogs droppings. We tend to think that horse, sheep and other animals even zoo (Zoo Doo) animals are the ones to use, but I discovered years ago any animal manure is fine when I had Sharpei dogs and collected their droppings off the concrete outside. I had a broken compost tumbler bin and would put their feces into there. I also put in a few Tiger Worms from my Worm-a-Round worm farm and months later was to delighted to have thousands of Tiger worms and excellent vermicast soil.

If you are near the countryside or where horses are you may find for sale bags of horse manure at a very good price. If you know a farmer then ask if you can collect some manure off the farm. If you don’t then through the Internet on Neighborly ask if there is a farmer who would allow you to pick up some cow pats.

If the farmer is more natural farming like in times gone by then when you lift a baked cow pat you are likely to find a heap of tiger worms under it breaking it down.

Manures can be added straight to the garden but depending what the animal had been eating, it may contain weed seeds especially grass seeds.

What you can do is get yourself a plastic rubbish bin with lid and put the manures into that; fill to about one third full when fill to two thirds full with water, ideally non-chlorinated water so the bacteria will thrive.

Obtain a wooden paddle or make one out of a wooden stake or pole with a flat bit of plywood about 100 mm square screwed onto the end of the pole so you can stir the brew every time you are passing.

Any weed seeds should float to the top and with a kitchen sieve you can scoop them out.

Ladle out some liquid after stirring and pour that into the root zone of your plants.

If you want to foliar feed, then mix the liquid manure one part to ten with water.

You can add other things such as chopped up sea weed collected from beach with salt on it, chopped up comfrey is a favorite of some gardeners. Add more water as level drops and later more manures etc.

When you buy meat in trays from a supermarket often there may be a residue of blood in the tray, good food for plants. Add a little non-chlorinated water and sprinkle onto container plants, indoors or out or add to your manure mix.

With kitchen scraps, if you don’t have a worm farm or chickens, don’t waste them: make a hole in the vegetable garden, put them into it and cover with soil.

In days gone by and likely still, farmers would make a trench in their vegetable plot and throw the kitchen scraps into the trench progressively covering over with soil till full, then dig another alongside.

It’s great food for your vegetable plants. Use a 2 litre ice cream container or similar on kitchen bench to put scraps into and when full bury in the vegetable garden.

At parties the men may be told to go pee under the lemon tree, the reason being is urine has free potassium nitrate in it and that makes plants grow, being nitrogen [overdoing it will burn the plants though —Eds].

The old days of long drops and Family Poe under the bed to be emptied next day over the compost heap. Likewise you can pee on the bare soil or into a suitable container and use that to water onto the soil by your plants or add some to your liquid manure.

Vegetable plants like a sweet soil and that is why we use garden lime on our vegetable garden. You can buy lime cheaply including Wallys Calcium & Health which has added minerals for your health.

Baking soda and washing soda can also be used to sweeten soil. (Don’t use where you are going to grow potatoes and tomatoes as they like a slightly acid soil.)

To obtain extra minerals and elements, use raw sea salt which we have as Wally Ocean Solids or use the pink Himalayan salt; place a little in planting hole or sprinkle over garden. Some can be added to your rubbish tin of liquid manure also.

Any questions just phone me on 0800 466464

This completes my two installments on savings though vegetable gardening, but I have a number of other suggestions for savings in other areas which have saved me money and also helped future-proof against rising costs and world happenings.

If you are interested in this send me an e-mail to wallyjr@gardenews.co.nz and in the subject line put FUTURE PROOF. I will reply to your e-mail with my thoughts and suggestions later in the week.

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