Potting Soil Conversation Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 Sibyl; > > Then there is how much light your balcony may get by reflection > > from other buildings. Different plants want more light than others > > --some are happy in shade. "Sr. Gloriamarie Amalfitano" wrote: > No reflection at all. My balcony overlooks the 163 freeway. Also it > is an enclosed box. And what i want to grow are crops. Tomatoes, > cucumbers, herbs, lettuces, whatever I can. Sibyl; I suspect that lettuces might do just fine on your balcony. Tomatoes do like a _lot_ of sun, but are worth a try without lights--if they get leggy (too tall in proportion, with leaves separated out farther than looks "right", they want more light. If you don't get bees, you'll need to fertilize them with an artist's brush when they bloom, or fool them into "thinking" they've been fertilized with "blossom set" hormone. Many herbs are shade-lovers: check as individuals. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure about cukes, but I've always planted them in full sun, and Kansas sun can get pretty intense too in the summer: burns some things that are supposed to be "sun-lovers", by instructions maybe written in England, New England, or Canada.... Sibyl; > > Egg shells soaked in water makes a good organic fertilizer (but stinks), > > the shells worked into your potting soil is slower, but smells better. Gloriamarie: > Have you tried Edna's Best Potting Soil from E B Stone? I consider > that the best I have ever used and I have tried a lot of potting soils > over the years and now i use this exclusively. > > One problem i have with orgsanic fertilizers is that I am a 1 person > household and I don;t have enough organic matter to fertilize all my > plants. Although one day I trimmed a lot of veggies and for the heck > of it I ground them up in the blender with some water and used that to > water my bay plant and it is the most vigorously growing of them all. Sibyl; There are places where you can buy organic fertilizers, such as ground phosphate rock, ground limestone, and most garden shops have bagged manure. You did a Good Thing by adding your vegetable trimmings, and you can mulch pots or boxes with them, too, just as outdoors. I don't buy potting soil, so don't have experience with brands, and most veg crops go into my compost-improved clay. I do have a lot of house plants, though. You won't be able to use my potting soil formulas, not having your own soil for digging or a place to produce compost in quantity (and the composting can also be quite a process, requiring _tons_, literally, of grass clippings and leaves, as well as garbage additives, real soil, etc, but just for information, pasted from my own garden notes, probably originally from some magazine or other, with additions and modifications of my own or from other sources--other gardeners on List might be able to use some of it, even an apartment dweller might be able to adapt some of it (and I think I remember that some of the formulas call for chemical garden fertilizer, which I routinely leave out and substitute other things). It also contains some verbatim definitions from sources. Anyone not interested in potting soil or gardening at all can ignore the rest (but you've probably already quit reading before this point! ;^) Although plants vary as to the types of soil they thrive best in, it is by no means necessary to prepare a special formula for each species and variety. In their needs they fall into a few groups--those, such as cacti and other succulents that require a coarse, gritty medium that contains a comparatively small amount of organic material and through which water passes with great ease; those such as ferns, begonias, and African Violets that give of their best only when grown in a soil that is extremely rich in decayed organic matter and that revel in the evenly moist root conditions that such a soil provides: those that succeed best in a fairly heavy (moderately clayey) soil such as geraniums and chrysanthemums; those such as gardenias and camellias that prefer acid soil conditions; and those such as Martha Washington geraniums that respond best in a decidedly sweet soil. Some plants have a wider range of tolerance for soils than others. Many will grow in any reasonably good earth provided it is well drained--others are more finicky, you must give them a soil pretty much to their liking. This is particularly true of plants that favor acid soil conditions. City-dwellers and others may find it difficult to obtain necessary ingredients for compounding their own soils, or inconvenient to mix them. These people can get along quite well with prepared mixes sold by garden centers, department and dime stores, and mail-order houses. Such mixes are free of pests, diseases, and weed seeds. Because they are usually compounded to keep shipping weight at a minimum, they commonly contain less loam (topsoil) than would normally be used in home mixes. For plants--except for African violets, ferns, and others known to prefer the loose earths containing very abundant organic matter (humus)-- it is often helpful, but not essential, to add to commercial mixes 10 to 20% by bulk of good topsoil. City folk may be able to acquire this from a friend’s garden or from a vacant lot in the suburbs or country, or even from a friendly contractor engaged in planting street trees. Florists who operate greenhouses are other possible sources of topsoil. If You Mix Your Own (Sybil's instructions posted separately.) pottingsoil.txt pottingsoil.html -- Love in Christ, Sibyl Smirl --------------------------------------------- On 2/13/06, Sibyl Smirl wrote: > > Coffee grounds--beg all you can from your neighbors, as well as your own, > > or beg them from your neighbors anyway if you don't make coffee. They're a > > wonderful mulch, and high-nitrogen, for acid-loving plants such as > > tomatoes. Sr. Gloriamarie Amalfitano" wrote: > Hmmm... we go through a lot of coffee at chruch. wonder what i could > put by the coffee pot to collect the grounds??? that people would > use. Sibyl; > > Tea leaves are similar, even in the tea bag. Gloriamarie: > hmmm... I do drink 2 or 3 cups of tea a day. Sibyl; > > Hair clippings and combings: your own, your dog's, your neighbors' dogs, > > cat hair from the vacuum cleaner, begged sweepings from beauty parlors, > > human or canine. High nitrogen mulch, good for any plants. Gloriamarie: > I imagine that the entire contents of my vaccum cleaner bag is nothing > but cat hair. Sibyl; Only about 90% of mine. Another 1% lost seed beads, some wool from rugs, (same as hair), and miscellaneous dust, fibers, and paper bits. Goes directly into my compost, or on the surface as mulch of outdoor beds, if I'm too lazy to walk all the way to the compost with it. Sibyl; > > Bones from your supper table--push them down deep into the outer soil of > > recently set out plants, or be careful of damaging roots of of more > > established plants. Gloriamarie: > Hmmm.. a reasoin to buy the chicken with bones in it when it is on > sale!! Any sort of plants these would be bad for?? Sibyl; None. Good for everything. They go into my compost, of course, but I do push them into house plants. See recommendations for "bone meal"--same thing, but slower. Sibyl; > > This is slower-acting than the pulverized bone meal > > (less surface area), but they'll still deteriorate and fertilize, even if > > you dig them up two years later and they don't _look_ much changed, still > > they'll have been leaching slowly into the soil. Presumably you don't have > > dogs or wild animals roaming your balcony for them to attract. Gloriamarie: > Just cas when they get the chance to sneak out. Sibyl; Cats are generally too finicky about their food to have an impulse to dig up bones, even though they can probably smell them. Sibyl; > > The "blender tea" that you invented for yourself. This is > > quick-composting, and the fine chopping is good for rapid deterioration. Gloriamarie: > I was worried that the deterioration would generate too much heat. > But whatever it did, the bay tree loved it. > So you think I could use this blender goo safely on many of my plants? Sibyl; Probably all of them, unless it's very acid, as in tomatoes, (in the blender goo, that is--and potted tomatoes are acid-lovers, also some herbs). If it contains onions and garlic, it's a great insect repellent too. -- Love in Christ, Sibyl Smirl --------------------------------------------- Gloriamarie: Taking Sibyl's advice: Been mulling over the things Sibyl wrote about natural fertilizer for apartment dwellers. something in the list of things she said that could be used or something in thew way she expressed it, I dunno, something hit up side the head and I realized I had been thinking in terms of having enough veggie bits, egg shells etc to fertilize all my plants at once and just how dumb was that!!! I had been thinking too big!! Thank you, Sibyl, for sparking this train of thought. What I can do i realized, is save up as I go right there in the blender which i almost never ever use for anything and when there is enough, grind it up with water and pout it into 1 plant at a time. So right now I have 4 eggshells and some pepper and mushroom bits. Green Thumb Attack: On my way to Petco to purchase cat food, I stopped at the local nursery. I was interested in picking up a few herbs. This was in celebration that i am, for the moment bronchitis free. I have a follow up with the Do on Mon and I will ask what i can do to remain so. Only to find they were having a sale on herbs and certain veggies. 4 inch posts for 79 cents. So i purchased 4 tomato plants, a jalapeno and an Anaheim pepper and a whole lot of herbs. I will plant the tomatoes and the peppers in empty cat litter buckets. Keith, my County assigned homemaker is going to figure out how to hang them from the ceiling of my patio. At least, the tomatoes. After all an indeterminate is a vine and there is no rule that says a vine must grow vertically. It can hang pretty well. I plan to grow some lemon cucumbers from the ceiling too. March is not too early to start the hot weather veggies in my part of San Diego. And I daresay that getting into their pots on one day this weekend, will allow the tomatoes time to establish a really strong root system before the nights start staying consistently over 60 degrees. I was delayed getting any cool weather veggies started, but if i remain bronchitis free, I hope to get some lettuces started as one thing I really really love is picking and eating my own salad stuff. I remember one halcyon year, i had so much I was able to keep mom, THE Judy and me in fresh salad for months. All grown in pots on my patio!! Might go back again tomorrow. and see what else is around for 79 cents. -- Sr. Gloriamarie Amalfitano --------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 From: Sibyl Smirl Well, actually, I don't know what "enough" would be, in your circumstances with container plants-- putting your plants down into a full pot of raw undigested organic matter would be "too much"! ;^) you can crush a couple of eggshells in your hand, and drop the bits right onto the soil surface, maybe scratch a little soil over them to cover if you're fastidious. The begonia in my kitchen window has a _mulch_ of crushed eggshell. You could spin a couple of tablespoons of veg trimmings in the blender with a half-cup of water, and water one dry plant with it, etc. I wouldn't bother trying to save up any amount in the blender bowl. One thing about the eggshells, you could crush them into your watering pot, cover with water, add a squirt of vinegar, and let them soak overnight: then they wouldn't stink so badly as soaking a lot for a long time in water, and the vinegar would accelerate the process of turning the shells into soluble nutrients usable by the plants--as long as the acetic acid is gone when you water, it wouldn't be too acid for anything, and it's gone when you don't smell vinegar any more--same process as making your soup stock calcium-rich with calcium leached from the bones you use. It's an interesting thing to do once (not for fertilizing plants, unless maybe tomatoes) to submerge a whole raw egg in vinegar in a glass overnight. In the morning the shell is entirely gone into the vinegar, and you have something that looks like a giant amoeba--a shell-less egg, contained only by the very fragile protein membrane inside the shell. After you've wondered at it and played with it a while, go ahead and lay it in the frying pan and pierce the membrane, cook and eat it. Sibyl Smirl