While working at the University of Utah in 1989,
electrochemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley
Pons announced their experimental achievement
of cold fusion, a phenomenon believed to be
unachievable. Although their announcement was
initially received with some acclaim, the inability
of other scientists to duplicate their results,
standard practice in the sciences, led to the term
“cold fusion” being associated with scientific
scandal.
петък, 8 януари 2010 г.
сряда, 11 ноември 2009 г.
Know Your Ingredients
Some of the recipes in this chapter include fertilizer products that you'll need to buy at a garden center or through a mail-order supply company. If you're new to using organic fertilizers, you may not know the names of some of these products. Here's a rundown of some products you'll use:
Blood meal: dried blood produced as a by-product of the meat industry; con tains about 13 percent nitrogen
Colloidal phosphate: clay washed from rock phosphate when the rock phos phate is mined; good source of phos phorus
Cottonseed meal: a waste product left after cottonseed oil is pressed out of cot tonseed; may contain chemical residues
Fish emulsion: a liquid by-product of the animal feed industry, made from fish; good source of nitrogen
Creensand: mined mineral deposits; good source of potassium and other minerals
Guano: aged, dried bird or bat droppings; high in nitrogen and phosphate
harvests of vegetables and fruit will require more frequent fertilizer applications, particu larly before and immediately after flowering.
Pick Your Mix
You'll find both dry and liquid fertilizer formulas in this chapter. Dry fertilizers, such as long-lasting granular or powdered mixes, are great for sidedressing actively growing plants. These power-packed organic fertil izers not only supply nutrients, but also im prove the texture and moisture retention of the soil by feeding a vast army of beneficial microbes (as many as 900 billion in 1 pound of soil). And these fertilizers will keep on working for weeks, even months.
In most cases, you can just spread dry fertilizer on the soil around individual plants and lightly scratch them into the soil. If your soil is low on any of the major nutrients (nitrogen is especially soluble, so it leaches out quickly from the soil), these dry fertilizers may be the best way to pro vide them.
The liquid fertilizer formulas we've col lected take the form of fast-acting teas and mixtures for foliar feeding (spraying the leaves of a plant) and soil drenches. While it's no substitute for a balanced soil, foliar feeding can be the best way to supplement your plants' diets. Like the vitamin and mineral supplements we humans take to combat high stress levels or to make up for poor eating habits, foliar feedings don't replace good soil fertilizers, they merely supplement them. If major nutrients or trace minerals are missing from the soil, these liquid fertilizers, sprayed directly on the leaves, will provide them fast! Plants will immediately absorb the micronu-trients from liquid fertilizers like manure tea, compost tea, and seaweed solutions. Since plants can't store excess nutrients in their leaves and draw on them later, you'll have to repeat foliar feedings at regular intervals.
Bucket beat bags
It's cheaper to buy fertilizer ingredients in bulk and split the costs and the resulting mix with a gardening friend or neighbor. But splitting a batch isn't always possible, and it's a good idea to be prepared in case there are leftovers.
You'll need containers, of course, but labels are just as important. Always label fertilizer containers before you fill them so there's no chance of forgetting a label or confusing the contents with another garden product.
Store homemade fertilizer in 5-gallon plastic buckets with lids. That way, mois ture (and pests) can't get into the mix and spoil it. You can get buckets for free—or for • a small fee—from grocery stores and restaurants. Attach your labels, or use a permanent marking pen to write the date and ingredients on each bucket.
Blood meal: dried blood produced as a by-product of the meat industry; con tains about 13 percent nitrogen
Colloidal phosphate: clay washed from rock phosphate when the rock phos phate is mined; good source of phos phorus
Cottonseed meal: a waste product left after cottonseed oil is pressed out of cot tonseed; may contain chemical residues
Fish emulsion: a liquid by-product of the animal feed industry, made from fish; good source of nitrogen
Creensand: mined mineral deposits; good source of potassium and other minerals
Guano: aged, dried bird or bat droppings; high in nitrogen and phosphate
harvests of vegetables and fruit will require more frequent fertilizer applications, particu larly before and immediately after flowering.
Pick Your Mix
You'll find both dry and liquid fertilizer formulas in this chapter. Dry fertilizers, such as long-lasting granular or powdered mixes, are great for sidedressing actively growing plants. These power-packed organic fertil izers not only supply nutrients, but also im prove the texture and moisture retention of the soil by feeding a vast army of beneficial microbes (as many as 900 billion in 1 pound of soil). And these fertilizers will keep on working for weeks, even months.
In most cases, you can just spread dry fertilizer on the soil around individual plants and lightly scratch them into the soil. If your soil is low on any of the major nutrients (nitrogen is especially soluble, so it leaches out quickly from the soil), these dry fertilizers may be the best way to pro vide them.
The liquid fertilizer formulas we've col lected take the form of fast-acting teas and mixtures for foliar feeding (spraying the leaves of a plant) and soil drenches. While it's no substitute for a balanced soil, foliar feeding can be the best way to supplement your plants' diets. Like the vitamin and mineral supplements we humans take to combat high stress levels or to make up for poor eating habits, foliar feedings don't replace good soil fertilizers, they merely supplement them. If major nutrients or trace minerals are missing from the soil, these liquid fertilizers, sprayed directly on the leaves, will provide them fast! Plants will immediately absorb the micronu-trients from liquid fertilizers like manure tea, compost tea, and seaweed solutions. Since plants can't store excess nutrients in their leaves and draw on them later, you'll have to repeat foliar feedings at regular intervals.
Bucket beat bags
It's cheaper to buy fertilizer ingredients in bulk and split the costs and the resulting mix with a gardening friend or neighbor. But splitting a batch isn't always possible, and it's a good idea to be prepared in case there are leftovers.
You'll need containers, of course, but labels are just as important. Always label fertilizer containers before you fill them so there's no chance of forgetting a label or confusing the contents with another garden product.
Store homemade fertilizer in 5-gallon plastic buckets with lids. That way, mois ture (and pests) can't get into the mix and spoil it. You can get buckets for free—or for • a small fee—from grocery stores and restaurants. Attach your labels, or use a permanent marking pen to write the date and ingredients on each bucket.
събота, 7 ноември 2009 г.
Fast, fun, and fabulous fertilizer Quick-fixes
Feed the soil, and the soil will feed your plants. That's one of the basic tenets of or ganic gardening. In most cases, an annual application of rich compost or well-aged manure will provide enough nutrients and organic matter to sustain your plants all through the growing season. Even so, your garden will probably need a quick pick-me-up from time to time. That doesn't mean that you have to run out to the garden center and drop some cash on an expensive fertilizer. Chances are you have the ingredi ents for making your own inexpensive, earth-friendly plant food right at hand.
We've polled garden experts from around the country for their favorite fertil izer formulas. Many of these fertilizer mixes, blends, and solutions provide more than the big three nutrients of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. They also include vital mi-cronutrients, plant growth hormones, soil conditioners, and even disease and insect fighters. Some of these time-tested fertilizer formulas include traditional, easy-to-find materials, like fish emulsion and manure. Others make use of more unusual ingredi ents, like Epsom salts and vinegar. Still others make the most of kitchen and garden wastes, including coffee grounds and weeds.
We hope these gardener-to-gardener formulas will inspire you to cook up some of your own creative mixes by making use of locally available materials for fertilizer. Collect wastes from local breweries, ma nure from zoos or local farms, leaves from curbsides, and kitchen scraps from restau rants or grocery stores. Many establish ments will be glad to have your haul away their wastes for free.
сряда, 4 ноември 2009 г.
Mix and Match Organic fertilizer
"Make your own custom organic fertilizer for almost any plant, says Bill Wolf, co-author of Rodale's Chemical-Free Yard and Garden. In general terms, there are three basic nutrients that a good general organic fertilizer should supply: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. You can save money by buying organic amendments that supply these nutrients and mixing them yourself in the proportions Bill recommends. The specific quantities of each nutrient will vary according to the materials you use, but all will give a balanced supply of nutrients.
Ingredients and Supplies
2 parts blood meal or 3 parts fish meal
(nitrogen source)
3 parts bonemeal, 6 parts rock phos-
phate, or 6 parts colloidal phosphate
(phosphorus source) 1 part kelp meal or 6 parts greensand
(potassium source) Dust mask Gloves
Safety goggles
Directions
1. Choose I nitrogen source, 1 phosphorus source, and 1 potassium source from the materials listed above. For example, you could select blood meal for nitrogen, rock phosphate for phosphorus, and greensand for potassium.
2. Mix the 3 materials you've chosen in the proper proportions. Be sure to wear a dust mask, gloves, and safety goggles while mixing the ingredients.
3. Apply the custom fertilizer around the base of established perennials, fruit trees, or roses. You can also mix some of the fertilizer into the soil of a bed before planting vegetable or flower transplants.
Kelp helps your plants
Kelp meal is the single product that Bill Wolf uses most to fertilize plants because it is such a complete source of the minerals that plants need. He advises applying 10 pounds of kelp per 1,000 square feet for fruit crops, vegetables, lawns, or ornamentals. Adding 1 teaspoon of kelp meal to the potting soil in a 6-inch pot will keep container plants looking their best.
Bill also says that if you can get fresh kelp or seaweed, by all means use it! He recommends rinsing the seaweed to remove salt, then applying it as a mulch or adding it to your compost pile. It decays quickly and is weed and seed free!
Ingredients and Supplies
2 parts blood meal or 3 parts fish meal
(nitrogen source)
3 parts bonemeal, 6 parts rock phos-
phate, or 6 parts colloidal phosphate
(phosphorus source) 1 part kelp meal or 6 parts greensand
(potassium source) Dust mask Gloves
Safety goggles
Directions
1. Choose I nitrogen source, 1 phosphorus source, and 1 potassium source from the materials listed above. For example, you could select blood meal for nitrogen, rock phosphate for phosphorus, and greensand for potassium.
2. Mix the 3 materials you've chosen in the proper proportions. Be sure to wear a dust mask, gloves, and safety goggles while mixing the ingredients.
3. Apply the custom fertilizer around the base of established perennials, fruit trees, or roses. You can also mix some of the fertilizer into the soil of a bed before planting vegetable or flower transplants.
Kelp helps your plants
Kelp meal is the single product that Bill Wolf uses most to fertilize plants because it is such a complete source of the minerals that plants need. He advises applying 10 pounds of kelp per 1,000 square feet for fruit crops, vegetables, lawns, or ornamentals. Adding 1 teaspoon of kelp meal to the potting soil in a 6-inch pot will keep container plants looking their best.
Bill also says that if you can get fresh kelp or seaweed, by all means use it! He recommends rinsing the seaweed to remove salt, then applying it as a mulch or adding it to your compost pile. It decays quickly and is weed and seed free!
неделя, 1 ноември 2009 г.
Skeeter Beater
As the weed fibers begin to break down, and the water becomes brown and thickens, algae may grow on the top of your weed-tea container. That's fine. "But mosquitoes can be a problem in the barrels," warns Neil Strickland. He adds minnows to his barrels to feed on mosquito larvae, but suggests that if you don't want to fool with fish, you can cover the containers with screens or lightweight row cover fabric to prevent mosquitoes from laying eggs in the water. Use a transparent or translucent cover and don't seal the top, because the process that breaks down the plant matter requires oxygen and sunlight. Don't use both a cover over your weed barrel and minnows inside it—the poor minnows won't have anything to eat!
If cold weather forces you to shut down your weed tea preparations for the winter, make good use of the rich sludge at the bottom of the barrel. Add the sludge to your compost pile to get even more benefit from the microbes and nutrients in it. Start a new barrel with fresh weeds when spring arrives.
вторник, 27 октомври 2009 г.
Potions and Practices for Organic Pest Control
On any warm summer day, your garden is filled with flying, crawling, and jumping insects. But very few of these creatures arc plant pests. Most of them—including spiders, lady beetles, and many wasps and flies—are more interested in capturing other insects than in aggravating gardeners. So controlling the few insects that are pests really isn't hard. Organic gardeners have devised lots of useful sprays, barriers, and traps for controlling pests without chemical pesticides.
Pest insects usually have specific food requirements. Many of the pest control formulas in this chapter work by tricking pests into thinking that they are on the wrong plant or making them eat something that they can't digest.
You'll also find formulas in this chapter for bigger pests, like squirrels, deer, cats, and dogs. These pesky animals can frustrate gardeners by eating or trampling plants. But, although we don't want animals to hurt our gardens, we also don't want to hurt the animals, so all of the formulas you'll find here are strictly nonpoisonous. They work by conditioning ani- Ichneumon mals to look elsewhere for dinner. wasp Use these same approaches when developing your own formulas to solve unusual pest problems in your garden. For example, if you have a problem with an insect that eats one type of plant but is never seen on another, try planting the two types of plants close to each other to confuse the pest and lessen the damage. Or you might brew a tea from leaves of the plant the pest ignores and use it to drench the plant that the pest likes. It just might fool them!
Your first defense against Pests
If you spot insect pests on a plant, simply pick them off! Then dispense with the pests using two flat rocks or whatever squashing method you can think up.
If the pests are too small, fast, or numerous for hand-picking, take action right away with an appropriate pest control formula. Pest populations tend to build up very quickly, and it's always easier to control a pest problem the day you discover it than to wait for another day—by then, you may face double the problem.
петък, 23 октомври 2009 г.
Deluxe Seed-Starting and Soil-Block Mix
Your seedlings will get off to a great start in a loose, light planting mix like this recipe from Maine's master organic grower Eliot Coleman, author of The New Organic Grower. Use the mix in traditional plastic seedling flats, recycled yogurt cups, or other containers, or try making soil blocks—lightly compressed cubes of potting soil made with a special tool called a soil block-maker (see "Sources," beginning on page 308). Eliot says that the advantage of starting your seedlings in soil blocks is that "roots grow throughout the block of the soil up to the edges and then wait, poised to continue growing as soon as they're set into the garden, instead of circling around the walls and becoming rootbound as they do if grown in regular containers."
Ingredients and Supplies
10-quart bucket (for measuring)
1/2 cup lime
40 quarts peat moss
Dust mask
Wheelbarrow
1 buckets coarse sand or perlite
1 cup colloidal phosphate 1 cup greensand
1 cup blood meal (if you plan to use the
mix for growing larger transplants) I bucket soil
1 buckets very well-aged compost, sifted
Directions
1. Mix the lime into the peat moss. Wear a dust mask to avoid breathing dust from dry ingredients. A wheelbarrow is a good mixing container.
2. Combine the peat-lime mixture with the coarse sand or perlite, the colloidal phosphate, and the greensand, which provides potassium and trace elements. If you're making this mix for growing larger transplants, add the blood meal, too. Leave out the blood meal if you're making small soil blocks for germinating seeds—they don't need the extra nourishment.
3. Mix in the soil and the compost and stir all ingredients together thoroughly.
4. Fill your containers with the mix and tap them to eliminate any large air pockets. Then plant your seeds according to the packet directions and loosely cover the containers with plastic to keep the mix moist until they sprout.
Yield: About 1 bushels of planting mix
Note: To make soil blocks, Eliot recommends moistening the mix with about I part water to 3 parts mix. Spread the moistened mix on a hard surface at a depth that is thicker than the blocks you're making. Press the block-maker into the mix with a quick push, followed by a twisting motion when it hits the table surface. Then lift the block-maker, set it into your tray and eject the blocks with the plunger. You can set your finished soil blocks in regular plastic seedling flats or, Eliot suggests, try using plastic bread trays from a commercial bakery.
Word of Damping-Off
Moisten your planting mix before using a soil block maker—moist mix makes it easier to form blocks that will hold together.
The compost in Eliot Coleman's seed-starting mix will help prevent damping-off, a fungal disease that infects seedling stems and causes the young plants to fall over and die. Other steps to prevent damping-off include:
► Providing good air circulation. Run a small fan near the pots and don't plant seeds too thickly.
►Cover seeds with a layer of milled light sphagnum moss (often sold as "No Damp Off"). Studies have shown the moss contains compounds that inhibit damping-off.
►Give seedlings the brightest light you can. If you don't have a greenhouse or large south-facing window, use fluorescent shop lights and keep your plants just an inch or so below the tubes
Ingredients and Supplies
10-quart bucket (for measuring)
1/2 cup lime
40 quarts peat moss
Dust mask
Wheelbarrow
1 buckets coarse sand or perlite
1 cup colloidal phosphate 1 cup greensand
1 cup blood meal (if you plan to use the
mix for growing larger transplants) I bucket soil
1 buckets very well-aged compost, sifted
Directions
1. Mix the lime into the peat moss. Wear a dust mask to avoid breathing dust from dry ingredients. A wheelbarrow is a good mixing container.
2. Combine the peat-lime mixture with the coarse sand or perlite, the colloidal phosphate, and the greensand, which provides potassium and trace elements. If you're making this mix for growing larger transplants, add the blood meal, too. Leave out the blood meal if you're making small soil blocks for germinating seeds—they don't need the extra nourishment.
3. Mix in the soil and the compost and stir all ingredients together thoroughly.
4. Fill your containers with the mix and tap them to eliminate any large air pockets. Then plant your seeds according to the packet directions and loosely cover the containers with plastic to keep the mix moist until they sprout.
Yield: About 1 bushels of planting mix
Note: To make soil blocks, Eliot recommends moistening the mix with about I part water to 3 parts mix. Spread the moistened mix on a hard surface at a depth that is thicker than the blocks you're making. Press the block-maker into the mix with a quick push, followed by a twisting motion when it hits the table surface. Then lift the block-maker, set it into your tray and eject the blocks with the plunger. You can set your finished soil blocks in regular plastic seedling flats or, Eliot suggests, try using plastic bread trays from a commercial bakery.
Word of Damping-Off
Moisten your planting mix before using a soil block maker—moist mix makes it easier to form blocks that will hold together.
The compost in Eliot Coleman's seed-starting mix will help prevent damping-off, a fungal disease that infects seedling stems and causes the young plants to fall over and die. Other steps to prevent damping-off include:
► Providing good air circulation. Run a small fan near the pots and don't plant seeds too thickly.
►Cover seeds with a layer of milled light sphagnum moss (often sold as "No Damp Off"). Studies have shown the moss contains compounds that inhibit damping-off.
►Give seedlings the brightest light you can. If you don't have a greenhouse or large south-facing window, use fluorescent shop lights and keep your plants just an inch or so below the tubes
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