Should you use Shaving-Based Manures In Your Garden?

Many horse stables use wood shavings rather then straw to bed down their horses. This makes the manure easier to handle, but it does cause a few problems chief of which is “ nitrogen robbery”

Wood shavings and chipping are very high in carbon and contain only small amounts of nitrogen. If the material is added to the soil without sufficient nitrogen, then the microbes rob the soil of its available nitrogen so that they can get to work on the shavings.

Eventually, when the wood savings have decomposed, the nitrogen will be made available again. The problem is this, it may well take a year or two. In the meantime, your crops will be short of nitrogen and turn yellow and be stunted.

In my view, the best way to use this sort of manure for your deep raised bed deep raised bed is to heap it up for a year and let it rot down. Make sure that it is covered with a plastic sheet to stop the rain leaching out all the goodness and have a bit of patience.

Strawy Manures

Manures With Straw in:

Cattle and horse are the most commonly used manures and they are the most available. They come mixed with straw that is used as bedding.

The analysis of the plant foods in these manures contain may make them look rather useless in comparison with a bag of bought fertiliser, but this is no reason to reject them, because it is not the whole picture.

Straw manure is applied to the land at much higher rates then bought fertilisers and their value is not limited to the plant foods they contain. Straw manures are particularly good for soil structure because they add bulk.

Fresh straw manures should not be used directly on the garden for four reason:

Unless the manure is from an organic source the straw is more then likely to contain residues of week killers and pesticides.

Nitrogen and potassium are easily washed out of fresh manure. This is a waste and could cause pollution.

Fresh straw manure contains nitrogen in a forum that is instantly available to plants; so, if you put in on the ground in the winter you will lose most of the goodness.

Fresh manure contains nitrogen in a form that can burn tender leaves.

Therefore, if you can get some fresh straw manures it is best to store in a heap for a year before digging it in the soil.

Five Points for Organic Gardening

Five Points for Organic Gardening

Organic gardening is not something that is new, it is centuries old. The important thing to remember is that it is the soil that holds the key. Feed it with bulky organic materials to keep the microscopic soil-living creatures happy and you will creative a soil to grow healthy crops without the use of chemicals.

There are a few principles that make up an organic garden and they are:

Number one; no chemicals. Everything that you use must be of an organic nature. This is not as difficult as it sounds!

Number two: only grow plants that are native to the area, or best suited to the garden. So no bananas in Canada please!

Number three: This is the important one…feed the soil and not the plant. This means supplying plenty of organic materials for the soil to make an environment that will foster the growth of healthy and vigorous plants.

Number four: return to the soil more then you take out in the form of crops. This can be done by using compost and green manures.

Number five: promote diversity among you crop by following a simple plant rotation plan.

Let nothing disturb you.

Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing upset you.
Everything changes.
God alone is unchanging.
With patience all things are possible.
Whoever has God lacks nothing.
God alone is enough. [2]

How much land do you need?

How much land do you need?

People grow vegetables for a number of reasons:

• for cheap food
• for tasty food
• to produce rare delicacies that are not easy to buy
• for the satisfaction of doing something
• enjoyment
• excises
• and many more reasons.

One of the question that you might ask yourself before you start, is:

How much land do you need to produce all the vegetables and salads that you need?

A plot of land that is 600 square yards should do the job. That is 60 yards long and 10 yards wide.This is an average allotment size in the UK, reckoned to be enough land for a family of four.

A person will have to be very busy to keep such a garden carefully cropped and clean and free from weeds without mechanical aids.

Before you start such an enterprise it is also a good thing to have a rough idea of how long it is going to take time wise, that is.

Based on my experience of the last few years on a allotment of 600 square yards. I would say you need 250-280 hours per year to cultivate a plot of this size.

A lot would depend, of course, on:

• your soil type
• your system
• how much experience you have
• your fitness.

My first year on my allotment took a lot more time because I took over a plot that had not been used for a couple of years and therefore was in a right state.

I spent a lot of time setting out raised beds and a fruit garden. Once that was done, the plot has just been a joy to 'work on' and I use that term lightly because with a bed system it is so easy to grow and keep weed free.

Proof of this is the fact that I am the cup holder for the best allotment in Oxford.

medical terminology

Some people have the highest stress rate because they do not understand the seriousness of most medical terminology...

here it is - please pay attention and learn....

Artery : The study of paintings

Bacteria : Back door to cafeteria

Barium : What doctors do when patients die

Benign : What you be, after you be eight

Caesarean Section : A neighborhood in Rome

Cat scan : Searching for Kitty

Cauterize : Made eye contact with her

Coma : A punctuation mark

Dilate : To live long

Enema : Not a friend

Fester : Quicker than someone else

Fibula : A small lie

Impotent : Distinguished, well known

Labor Pain : Getting hurt at work

Morbid : A higher offer

Nitrates : Rates of Pay for Working at Night,

Node : I knew it

Outpatient : A person who has fainted

Pelvis : Second cousin to Elvis

Secretion : Hiding something

Seizure : Roman Emperor

Tablet : A small table

Terminal Illness : Getting sick at the airport

Tumor : One plus one more

Urine : Opposite of you're out

During difficult times,

During difficult times, you move forward in small steps.
Do what you have to do, but little by bit.
Don't think about the future, not even what might happen tomorrow. Wash the dishes.
Take off the dust.
Write a letter.
Make some soup.
Do you see?
You are moving forward step by step.
Take a step and stop.
Get some rest.
Compliment yourself.
Take another step.
Then another one.
You won't notice, but your steps will grow bigger and bigger.
And time will come when you can think about the future without crying. Good morning

(Elena Mikhalkova, "The Room of Ancient Keys")

Potatoes

Potatoes:

No matter wether the tubers are bought, or are the rsult of home production, it is most important that you “sprout” the seed.

It has been shown that sprouted seed grow two to three tons to the acre more than unsprouted specimens.

This is not hard to understand, because the grower will be aware that if they have succeeded in persuading a shoot to grow from a tuber, it is a sound specimen, and that it will grow when planted in the ground.

On the other hand, if unsprouted tubers are planted in a row of twelve, at least three may well fail to come through the soil, which will result in the loss in that row of from eighteen to twenty pounds in weight.

Distributed over an acre, it is obvious that the increase of two to threee tons mentioned earlier, may be easily obtained if the tubers have been sprouted.

For sprouting seed potatoes, should be set up in single layers in shallow trays. I use old egg boxes.

Place them in a cool dry spot to sprout. Do not them in a dark place because this will produce long weak shoots which can easly be broken off.

What you need is short sturdy sprouts to give you a great harvest.