Organic Gardener's Composting Part 16

The first valuable mineral to go is calcium. Semi-arid soils usually still retain large quant.i.ties of calcium. The nutrient most resistant to leaching is pota.s.sium. Leached out forest soils usually still retain relatively large amounts of pota.s.sium. William Albrecht observed this data and connected with it a number of fairly obvious and vital changes in plant nutritional qualities that are caused by these differences in soil fertility. However obvious they may be, Albrecht's work was not considered politically correct by his peers or the interest groups that supported agricultural research during the mid-twentieth century and his contributions have been largely ignored. Worse, his ideas did not quite fit with the ideological preconceptions of J.l. Rodale, so organic gardeners and farmers are also ignorant of Albrecht's wisdom.

Albrecht would probably have approved of the following chart that expresses the essential qualities of dryland and humid soils.

Soil Mineral Content by Climate Area

Plant Nutrient Dryland Prairie Soil Humid Forest Soil nitrogen high low phosphorus high low pota.s.sium high moderately high calcium very high low pH neutral acid

Dryland soils contain far higher levels of all minerals than leached soils. But Albrecht speculated that the key difference between these soils is the _ratio _of calcium to pota.s.sium. In dryland soils there is much more calcium in the soil than there is pota.s.sium while in wetter soils there is as much or more pota.s.sium than calcium. To test his theory he grew some soybeans in pots. One pot had soil with a high amount of calcium relative to the amount of pota.s.sium, imitating dryland prairie soil. The other pot had just as much calcium but had more pota.s.sium, giving it a ratio similar to a high quality farm soil in the eastern United States. Both soils grew good-looking samples of soybean plants, but when they were a.n.a.lyzed for nutritional content they proved to be quite different.

Soil Yield Calories Protein Calcium Phosphorus Pota.s.sium Humid 17.8 gm High 13% 0.27% 0.14% 2.15% Dryland 14.7 gm Medium 17% 0.74% 0.25% 1.01%

The pota.s.sium-fortified soil gave a 25 percent higher bulk yield but the soybeans contained 25 percent less protein. The consumer of those plants would have to burn off approximately 30 percent more carbohydrates to obtain the same amount of vital amino acids essential to all bodily functions. Wet-soil plants also contain only one-third as much calcium, an essential nutrient, whose lack over several generations causes gradual reduction of skeletal size and dental deterioration. They also contain only half as much phosphorus, another essential nutrient. Their oversupply of pota.s.sium is not needed; humans eating balanced diets usually excrete large quant.i.ties of unnecessary pota.s.sium in their urine.

Albrecht then a.n.a.lyzed dozens of samples of vegetation that came from both dryland soils and humid soils and noticed differences in them similar to the soybeans grown under controlled conditions. The next chart, showing the average composition of plant vegetation from the two different regions, is taken directly from Albrecht's research. The figures are averages of large numbers of plant samples, including many different food crops from each climate.

Average Nutritional Content by Climate

Nutrient Dryland Soil Humid Soil Pota.s.sium 2.44% 1.27% Calcium 1.92% 0.28% Phosphorus 0.78% 0.42% Total mineral nutrition 5.14% 1.97% Ratio of Pota.s.sium to Calciuim 1.20/1 4.50/1

a.n.a.lyzed as a whole, these data tell us a great deal about how we should manage our soil to produce the most nutritious food and about the judicious use of compost in the garden as well. I ask you to refer back to these three small charts as I point out a number of conclusions that can be drawn from them.

The basic nutritional problem that all animals have is not about finding energy food, but how to intake enough vitamins, minerals and usable proteins. What limits our ability to intake nutrients is the amount of bulk we can process--or the number of calories in the food. With cows, for example, bulk is the limiter. The cow will completely fill her digestive tract at all times and will process all the vegetation she can digest every day of her life. Her health depends on the amount of nutrition in that bulk. With humans, our modern lifestyle limits most of us to consuming 1,500 to 1,800 calories a day. Our health depends on the amount of nutrients coming along with those calories.

So I write the fundamental equation for human health as follows:

HEALTH = NUTRITION IN FOOD DIVIDED BY CALORIES IN THAT FOOD

If the food that we eat contains all of the nutrients that food could possibly contain, and in the right ratios, then we will get sufficient nutrition while consuming the calories we need to supply energy. However, to the degree that our diet contains denatured food supplying too much energy, we will be lacking nutrition and our bodies will suffer gradual degeneration. This is why foods such as sugar and fat are less healthful because they are concentrated sources of energy that contain little or no nutrition. Nutritionless food also contributes to "hidden hungers" since the organism craves something that is missing. The body overeats, and becomes fat and unhealthy.

Albrecht's charts show us that food from dry climates tends to be high in proteins and essential minerals while simultaneously lower in calories. Food from wet climates tends to be higher in calories while much lower in protein and essential mineral nutrients.

Albrecht's writings, as well as those of Weston Price, and Sir Robert McCarrison listed in the bibliography, are full of examples showing how human health and longevity are directly a.s.sociated with these same variations in climate, soil, and food nutrition.

Albrecht pointed out a clear example of soil fertility causing health or sickness. In 1940, when America was preparing for World War II, all eligible men were called in for a physical examination to determine fitness for military service. At that time, Americans did not eat the same way we do now. Food was produced and distributed locally. Bread was milled from local flour. Meat and milk came from local farmers. Vegetables and potatoes did not all come from California. Regional differences in soil fertility could be seen reflected in the health of people.

Albrecht's state, Missouri, is divided into a number of distinct rainfall regions. The northwestern part is gra.s.sy prairie and receives much less moisture than the humid, forested southeastern section. If soil tests were compared across a diagonal line drawn from the northwest to the southeast, they would exactly mimic the climate-caused mineral profile differences Albrecht had identified.

Not unexpectedly, 200 young men per 1,000 draftees were medically unfit for military service from the northwest part of Missouri while 400 per 1,000 were unfit from the southeastern part. And 300 per 1,000 were unfit from the center of the state.

Another interesting, and rather frightening, conclusion can be drawn from the second chart. Please notice that by increasing the amount of pota.s.sium in the potting soil, Albrecht increased the overall yield by 25 percent while simultaneously lowering all of the other significant nutritional aspects. Most of this increase of yield was in the form of carbohydrates, that in a food crops equates to calories. Agronomists also know that adding pota.s.sium fertilizer greatly and inexpensively increases yield. So American farm soils are routinely dosed with pota.s.sium fertilizer, increasing bulk yield and profits without consideration for nutrition, or for the ultimate costs in public health. Organic farmers often do not understand this aspect of plant nutrition either and may use "organic" forms of pota.s.sium to increase their yields and profits. Buying organically grown food is no guarantee that it contains the ultimate in nutrition.

So, if health comes from paying attention to the ratio of nutrition to calories in our food, then as gardeners who are in charge of creating a significant amount of our own fodder, we can take that equation a step further:

HEALTH = Nutrition/Calories = Calcium/Pota.s.sium

When we decide how to manage our gardens we can take steps to imitate dryland soils by keeping pota.s.sium levels lower while maintaining higher levels of calcium.

Now take another close look at the third chart. Average vegetation from dryland soils contains slightly more pota.s.sium than calcium (1.2:1) while average vegetation from wetland soils contains many more times more pota.s.sium than calcium (4.5:1). When we import manure or vegetation into our garden or farm soils we are adding large quant.i.ties of pota.s.sium. Those of us living in rainy climates that were naturally forested have it much worse in this respect than those of us gardening on the prairies or growing irrigated gardens in desert climates because the very vegetation and manure we use to "build up" our gardens contains much more pota.s.sium while most of our soils already contain all we need and then some.

It should be clear to you now why some organic gardeners receive the soil tests like the man at my lecture. Even the soil tester, although scientifically trained and university educated, did not appreciate the actual source of the pota.s.sium overdose. The tester concluded it must have been wood ashes when actually the pota.s.sium came from organic matter itself.

I conclude that organic matter is somewhat dangerous stuff whose use should be limited to the amount needed to maintain basic soil tilth and a healthy, complex soil ecology.

Fertilizing Gardens Organically

Scientists a.n.a.lyzing the connections between soil fertility and the nutritional value of crops have repeatedly remarked that the best crops are grown with compost and fertilizer. Not fertilizer alone and not compost alone. The best place for gardeners to see these data is Werner Schupan's book (listed in the bibliography).

But say the word "fertilizer" to an organic gardener and you'll usually raise their hackles. Actually there is no direct linkage of the words "fertilizer" and "chemical." A fertilizer is any concentrated plant nutrient source that rapidly becomes available in the soil. In my opinion, chemicals are the poorest fertilizers; organic fertilizers are far superior.

The very first fertilizer sold widely in the industrial world was guano. It is the naturally sun-dried droppings of nesting sea birds that acc.u.mulates in thick layers on rocky islands off the coast of South America. Guano is a potent nutrient source similar to dried chicken manure, containing large quant.i.ties of nitrogen, fair amounts of phosphorus, and smaller quant.i.ties of pota.s.sium. Guano is more potent than any other manure because sea birds eat ocean fish, a very high protein and highly mineralized food. Other potent organic fertilizers include seed meals; pure, dried chicken manure; slaughterhouse wastes; dried kelp and other seaweeds; and fish meal.

Composition of Organic Fertilizers

Material % Nitrogen % Phos. % Pota.s.sium Alfalfa meal 2.5 0.5 2.1 Bone meal (raw) 3.5 21.0 0.2 Bone meal (steamed) 2.0 21.0 0.2 Chicken manure (pure, fresh) 2.6 1.25 0.75 Cottonseed meal 7.0 3.0 2.0 Blood meal 12.0 3.0 -- Fish meal 8.0 7.0 -- Greensand -- 1.5 7.0 Hoof and Horn 12.5 2.0 -- Kelp meal 1.5 0.75 4.9 Peanut meal 3.6 0.7 0.5 Tankage 11.0 5.0 --

Growing most types of vegetables requires building a level of soil fertility that is much higher than required by field crops like cereals, soybeans, cotton and sunflowers. Field crops can be acceptably productive on ordinary soils without fertilization.

However, because we have managed our farm soils as depreciating industrial a.s.sets rather than as relatively immortal living bodies, their ability to deliver plant nutrients has declined and the average farmer usually must add additional nutrients in the form of concentrated, rapidly-releasing fertilizers if they are going to grow a profitable crop.

Vegetables are much more demanding than field crops. They have long been adapted to growing on potent composts or strong manures like fresh horse manure or chicken manure. Planted and nourished like wheat, most would refuse to grow or if they did survive in a wheat field, vegetables would not produce the succulent, tender parts we consider valuable.

Building higher than normal levels of plant nutrients can be done with large additions of potent compost and manure. In semi-arid parts of the country where vegetation holds a beneficial ratio of calcium to pota.s.sium food grown that way will be quite nutritious.

In areas of heavier rainfall, increasing soil fertility to vegetable levels is accomplished better with fertilizers. The data in the previous section gives strong reasons for many gardeners to limit the addition of organic matter in soil to a level that maintains a healthy soil ecology and acceptable tilth. Instead of supplementing compost with low quality chemical fertilizers, I recommend making and using a complete organic fertilizer mix to increase mineral fertility.

Making and Using Complete Organic Fertilizer

The basic ingredients used for making balanced organic fertilizers can vary and what you decide on will largely depend on where you live. Seed meal usually forms the body of the blend. Seed meals are high in nitrogen and moderately rich in phosphorus because plants concentrate most of the phosphorus they collect during their entire growth cycle into their seeds to serve to give the next generation a strong start. Seed meals contain low but more than adequate amounts of pota.s.sium.

The first mineral to be removed by leaching is calcium. Adding lime can make all the difference in wet soils. Dolomite lime also adds magnesium and is the preferable form of lime to use in a fertilizer blend on most soils. Gypsum could be subst.i.tuted for lime in arid areas where the soils are naturally alkaline but still may benefit from additional calcium. Kelp meal contains valuable trace minerals.

If I were short of money, first I'd eliminate the kelp meal, then the phosphate source.

All ingredients going into this formula are measured by volume and the measurements can be very rough: by sack, by scoop, or by coffee can. You can keep the ingredients separated and mix fertilizer by the bucketful as needed or you can dump the contents of half a dozen a.s.sorted sacks out on a concrete sidewalk or driveway and blend them with a shovel and then store the mixture in garbage cans or even in the original sacks the ingredients came in.

This is my formula.

4 parts by volume: Any seed meal such as cottonseed meal, soybean meal, sunflower meal, canola meal, linseed meal, safflower, peanut meal or coconut meal. Gardeners with deep pocketbooks and insensitive noses can also fish meal. Gardeners without vegetarian scruples may use meat meal, tankage, leather dust, feather meal or other slaughterhouse waste.

1 part by volume: Bone meal or rock phosphate

1 part by volume: Lime, preferably dolomite on most soils.

(Soils derived from serpentine rock contain almost toxic levels of magnesium and should not receive dolomite. Alkaline soils may still benefit from additional calcium and should get gypsum instead of ordinary lime.)

1/2 part by volume: kelp meal or other dried seaweed.

To use this fertilizer, broadcast and work in about one gallon per each 100 square feet of growing bed or 50 feet of row. This is enough for all low-demand vegetables like carrots, beans and peas.

For more needy species, blend an additional handful or two into about a gallon of soil below the transplants or in the hill. If planting in rows, cut a deep furrow, sprinkle in about one pint of fertilizer per 10-15 row feet, cover the fertilizer with soil and then cut another furrow to sow the seeds in about two inches away.

Locating concentrations of nutrition close to seeds or seedlings is called "banding."

I have a thick file of letters thanking me for suggesting the use of this fertilizer blend. If you've been "building up your soil" for years, or if your vegetables never seem to grow as large or l.u.s.tily as you imagine they should, I strongly suggest you experiment with a small batch of this mixture. Wouldn't you like heads of broccoli that were 8-12 inches in diameter? Or zucchini plants that didn't quit yielding?