Organic Gardening Info from Peaceful Valley

A lot of our earliest and most vibrant reminders of Spring are bulbs.  But what happens after the flowers have gone and the leaf material has turned brown and wilted?  If they are inter-planted with other perennial plants or late blooming bulbs your beds will look wonderful through summer.  Then Winter hits and we sometimes wonder where the bulbs went and will they make it through our typical winter freezes?  The good news is that most of our favorite bulbs are in the hardy plant category that can over winter underground even where frost penetrates deeply into the soil.  Crocus, Daffodils, Tulips, Lillies and Hyacinths fall into this category.  Bulbs will benefit greatly from a 2-4″ deep mulch of shredded bark or hardwood, leaves or compost.  Mulch prevents the ground from alternately freezing and thawing, which can heave bulbs right out of the ground during winter.  In summer, mulch conserves moisture and keeps the weeds at bay.  Wait until the ground freezes to apply a winter mulch to fall planted bulbs.  Check your local Master Gardeners County Extension for more information in your area.

We are growers of herb and vegetable starts, in business since 1988, and wanting to change to all organic. For years, we’ve been producing our starts with triple-20 at a ratio of 1:200. This works quickly (we produce a saleable 4″ well-rooted plant, in most cases, in 8-10 weeks). Do you carry a product that would replace the chemical fertilizers but maintain the same production schedule? Or maybe there is a combination of organics that would helps us make this change. Please advise.

Whitney

Hi Whitney,

First of all, congratulations on your decision to go organic! It is definitely a good one! You will learn that organic fertilizers don’t have numbers as high as conventional. However, 8-10 weeks is a reasonable time to expect well rooted plants if conditions (temperature, moisture, etc.) are optimal. In your soil mixture, you might consider adding our Rose, Flower & Bulb mix (Item F064-25lb bag). It’s a 4-8-4 meal with some really nice ingredients including alfalfa meal, bone meal, and kelp meal. After 4 weeks, you can apply it again on the surface and water it in. If you would like a liquid fertilizer as well, our Omega 6-6-6 (Item F1825-5 Gal) is an excellent choice. You can apply it every 2-4 weeks at 2-4 Tbl per Gallon, which is 1:128-1:64.

We carry some excellent Mycorrhizae powders that can be mixed with the soil mix or added to the pots and watered in. Mycorrhixae are beneficial fungi that help the plant root and uptake nutrients (Item ISO705-24oz).

Hope that helps! Thank you for growing organically!
Amber

I’ve just finished putting up a very handy organic fertilizing info page taken from GrowOrganic.com here on the site. If you have any questions this season about what to do to amend your soil, start there.

Everything you need to know to start fertilizing organically.