Would truckloads of Seaweed help out?
 

My oldest sister lives in a waterfront community. So i have access to the beach and boat ramps ect. There is always seaweed on the beach and lots of it. I am sure with little effort I could load my 1/2 ton Chevy full and bring it home.

Would that much of the stuff help?

Here is my plan I want to do plastic mulch and drip tape next year. I was thinking of tilling a bunch of rows about 4 ft wide by 100 yds. Say 4 or 5 rows separated by my lawn every 5 foot or so. I would then be able to mow between the rows real easy. The problem is after I till the soil to make it soft and get all the rocks and junk out of it. I have nothing really here to do raised rows. I was thinking that seaweed would help. I know leaves will to but i don't really have much leaf material. I could buy topsoil by the truck load but can see my wallet going broke. With me needed raise rows what would be a cost effective way to do this. I am going totally organic with what I will consider a no till deal after the first time to clean up.

Whaddyathink?

I should think that seaweed would be amazing, although I wonder about the salt content. Perhaps others could advise.

I use pond weed on my veggie garden as a mulch. I don't till, but it breaks down over the winter and gets incorporated into my soil.

I would take all the seaweed I could get and, even if it needs to be rinsed off first, I still think it would be an excellent amendment for your soil.

Linda

I suspect it would need a solid fresh-water rinsing (somewhere away from your garden so you don't salt-contaminate with the runoff water). After that I would think it would be great.

The seaweed would come from the Chesapeake bay ecosystem. Right out of the Patuxent & Potomac rivers. Both rivers are considered brackish waters. So yes there is salt but not as much as if I were getting it from the ocean.

I was sitting here thinking about this some more. I am sure i could get truckloads of crab and shrimp shells from the seafood restaurants around here. As well as clam and oyster in the winter. The cooked crab and shrimp by product will have a bunch of seasoning in it tho. Like Old Bay and J.O. spice company.

Hum...

From past archives.
[url]http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=2945&highlight=seaweed+kelp+mulch[/url]

I tried the free seaweed/kelp harvest from beaches here in S Florida at the dumps in the participating free mulch programs(Xmas trees,pruned chipped yard waste,seaweeds etc.).
So far as it is we can't drive on our beaches(Daytona maybe)some rural areas.
I understand it takes some time to dry out and decompose quick enough for a " next year use".From the dumps all garbge.Fishhooks,fishing line styrofoam ,bottle caps,Cig butts.I would avoid any seaweed from around oilsheen laden boat docks ramps.Large scale earth turning and furrowing I hear is used.
Good Luck.

The problem that I have found with crab/lobster shells is that they take forever to degrade (in a composter) basically, they do not degrade at all, and I found bits in my veggie garden for a long time. I think they would need to be pulverized.

My dogs eat our shrimp shells like doggy potato chips, so they never make it to the compost bin.

Linda

Seaweed would have to be piled on 6 feet deep for the salt to have a negative effect. So I was told when I 1st got here over 30 yrs ago by an old timer who grew great veggies. I have dug it in in the fall/winter and used it as a mulch in summer. Friends who have done the same have no problems either.

[QUOTE=kurt;570261]From past archives.
[url]http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=2945&highlight=seaweed+kelp+mulch[/url]
[/QUOTE]

This link is a very good read thanks!

[QUOTE=Labradors2;570272]The problem that I have found with crab/lobster shells is that they take forever to degrade (in a composter) basically, they do not degrade at all, and I found bits in my veggie garden for a long time. I think they would need to be pulverized.

My dogs eat our shrimp shells like doggy potato chips, so they never make it to the compost bin.

Linda[/QUOTE]

Hey Linda, Yep I was sitting here thinking I could put the shells into one of the old school L.F. & C. universal meat grinder's. I have used one in the past to grind up fresh 5 gallons buckets full of Herring. We would then freeze it in to 2 gallon zip locks. When we went fishing we would use the fresh Herring as chum to attract the big Rockfish. Herring is one of the best baits I have ever used. I have caught fish as long as my legs. I am almost 6ft tall.

So yea not sure if will work but the grinders are cheap enough and i want another one anyway to make fresh sausage again. As far as pulverized I am not sure how to pull that off. Seems to me that worth1 might have an idea about that.

Dogs will eat anything girl! It does not matter 1 bit... lol

Thanks
Bill

[QUOTE=GrowingCoastal;570289]Seaweed would have to be piled on 6 feet deep for the salt to have a negative effect. So I was told when I 1st got here over 30 yrs ago by an old timer who grew great veggies. I have dug it in in the fall/winter and used it as a mulch in summer. Friends who have done the same have no problems either.[/QUOTE]


Great post, & thanks for confirming that the amount of salt is minuscule.

Regards
Bill

[QUOTE=PaddyMc;570259]I suspect it would need a solid fresh-water rinsing (somewhere away from your garden so you don't salt-contaminate with the runoff water). After that I would think it would be great.[/QUOTE]

When I was reading the posts from that link Kurt supplied. One person suggested putting the seaweed into a washing machine. I thought that was pretty funny. In the end tho it really is a good idea if you have an extra machine laying around. i would try that seriously.

Thanks
Bill

A grinder might work on the shells, but they would need to be small pieces to fit down the chute.! I have a Tasin electric grinder from Northern Tools. It's strong enough to grind up chicken bones (for dog food), and we put a whole pile of semi-frozen Menhaden through it before I discovered that one dog was allergic to fish.... Fish meal would be great for the garden!

It's great to learn that the seaweed salt won't hurt the garden. No need to put it through the washer first {LOL}.

Linda

[QUOTE=Labradors2;570306]A grinder might work on the shells, but they would need to be small pieces to fit down the chute.! I have a Tasin electric grinder from Northern Tools. It's strong enough to grind up chicken bones (for dog food), and we put a whole pile of semi-frozen Menhaden through it before I discovered that one dog was allergic to fish.... Fish meal would be great for the garden!

It's great to learn that the seaweed salt won't hurt the garden. No need to put it through the washer first {LOL}.

Linda[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the name of the grinder. I am all over eBay now looking for one. I can just see how this is going to go. I will have wild boar & black bear scavenging in my yard.

The washing machine cracked me up good!

My lord...
Bill

[QUOTE=Labradors2;570306]It's strong enough to grind up chicken bones (for dog food), and we put a whole pile of semi-frozen Menhaden through it before I discovered that one dog was allergic to fish....

Linda[/QUOTE]

My dad would use all the waste from the fresh hams that he cooked to make Scrapple for the dogs. He would simply boil it all down real good and add cornmeal to it. After the cornmeal cooked he would tray it all up in 12x9's and put it into the fridge. The dogs loved it and was used as a treat.

He also use to make up a concoction of olive oil and garlic (god only knows what else was in it). He would then take a very large turkey baster / eye dropper full of it. Go into each stall with all the different thoroughbreds and grab them around the head. He would take that eyedropper full of stuff and shove it into their mouths. Yea they didn't like it too much. He wouldn't take much guff.

I was later told that he would feed them rabbit tobacco when he was breaking in the cracker jacks. That was really something to watch!

Bill

Seaweed is without a doubt one of the best materials for building soil that you can get on this earth. The rate of breakdown depends on your climate and time of year and what you do with it.
It is an important material for us here - I know people who made their soil entirely from kelp, in a community where there wasn't any soil (seriously - a rock). I've never heard of anyone here rinsing the kelp before they used it in any of a dozen ways. Kelp is loaded with potassium and when it's composted into the soil you will grow the sweetest vegetables you ever tasted.

I know one guy, he just brings home truckloads of kelp, throws it in a compost bin and lets it rot down for a year then puts it in the garden.

I've been using coarse chopped fresh or dried and crumbled kelp in my tomato containers every year. At the end of the season there's no bit of it left, it is all consumed and turned to soil. I decided to change out my container soil this season, so last fall I cycled it outdoors and built some new garlic beds. The garlic is doing fantastic. The soil after all was so black and rich - the stuff I got to replace it is nowhere near the quality that had built up over 5 years.

One year I built a lasagna bed for my garlic, with cardboard over the weedy ground, then layers of kelp and compost. Garlic did great. When I dug the bed the following year, I found some kelp at the bottom that had not decomposed over a full year. The cardboard below it was completely gone. That kelp was not cut up in any way just piled in a layer to start the bed. Bearing in mind we have a cool climate and a short summer, I reckon there wasn't enough heat at that depth to break all of it down. Experiment and see how it works in your climate.

Also I use kelp as mulch for garlic and it is by far the best. Used some grass clippings last year and comparing the grass mulched vs the kelp mulched, the kelp were earlier and more vigorous. Sitting on the surface as a mulch, the kelp will dry up and just sit there instead of breaking down as it does incorporated in soil.

Crabshells, shrimp shells are also fantastic soil amendments. Besides being rich in N and P they are a good source of calcium, and the chitin which these are made of, is a feedstock for beneficial soil microbes eg Trichoderma, which naturally occur all over the world but especially they are designed to feed on chitin - as when they prey on less friendly fungus organisms in the soil (also built of chitin). People pay money to add these organisms to their soils, which you can naturally encourage with this approach to soil building. For example there were studies done at the ag department here, showing that crab shell amendment prevented potato scab - a fungus pest in the soil.

So did I say enough??? Go for it! Lucky you, and a great plan to build your soil. :D

Doesn't the chitin also help reduce root knot nematodes?

Chickens love shrimp shells, they will probably also break and eat crab shells. Then put chicken poo in the garden and eat the eggs.

I've no experience with RKN, but there's a fair bit of buzz and research using chitinous shells, meal, for example[URL="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18678924"] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18678924[/URL].
The action is probably mediated by [I]Trichoderma harzanium[/I] population increasing in the amended soil. The nematode eggs are made of chitin too - so Trichoderma will destroy them, besides other reported effects of increasing plant resistance.
Here's an example of research on Trichoderma where chitin is used to supplement the media where it's grown.
[URL]http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038071708001193[/URL]
:)

This is all great info especially about RKN. I was googling around this morning for different kinds of shells. When I was looking for oysters shells i found a 50lb bag local @ tractor supply. The price is $9.99 so it makes no sense to collect oyster shells at all.

[url]http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/manna-pro-oyster-shell-50-lb?cm_vc=IOPDP1[/url]

I’m glad to come back on Tville after a period of rest. I’m too far from the sea to pick up weeds, I can only buy them in bags sold as fertilizers.
I googled the use of seaweeds in Britany a region of France known for its production of seaweeds for farming and industry and a long tradition of farmers improving their fields with them.
Their composition is worth noting : 2% N, 2, 3%P, 1% Mg, 1 , 8% S, 5% Ca and small quantities of Fe Zn Mn Ni Cu I. Green seaweeds can contain 3% Ca and 6% Mg. Dry organic matter : 70%.
Red and green seaweeds, thin leaved seaweeds can be spread on the land in winter and will decompose quickly.
Brown seaweeds decompose slowly so people make compost, add kitchen waste and leave it in place for 6 months. If the heap is very big, it can be kept in an unused part of the garden to have rainwater wash the salt away.
Good for tomatoes, potatoes, all cultures needing potassium. Varieties with lots of iodine are not recommended.
There may be rules against picking them up in the ocean but when they are on the shore you will be welcome to clean the place !

In addition to nutrients, kelp also contains a naturally-occurring plant growth hormone.

Chitin is also supposed to increase cell wall strength, leading to stronger stems and sturdier plants.

[QUOTE=MrSalvage;570429]This is all great info especially about RKN. I was googling around this morning for different kinds of shells. When I was looking for oysters shells i found a 50lb bag local @ tractor supply. The price is $9.99 so it makes no sense to collect oyster shells at all.

[URL]http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/manna-pro-oyster-shell-50-lb?cm_vc=IOPDP1[/URL][/QUOTE]

I have a little experience with oyster shells - a one time thing, when my son was a youngster and had a bad flu I bought a small bag of oysters to make him some broth. The shells got tossed in the garden. Yes I come across one now and then, they are mostly still intact after maybe 20 years. :lol: This is in spite of the shells being boiled to make broth.
We also eat lots of mussels whenever we get the chance, and those shells I toss in the garden - into the paths where foot traffic will crush them up over time. They are much thinner than oyster shells but still are very persistent. It's pointless to put them in the compost because they don't decompose. Eventually they will add calcium to the soil but we're talking on a scale of... maybe hundreds or even thousands of years. :shock::?: Archaeologists here were able to learn something about the history of native peoples, by the "middens" of mussel shells they left behind in their camps. So... it's not a readily available material for a vegetable garden.
Shrimp and crab shells, fish bones also will decompose in a few years at most or at least will be reduced to very small fragments that add texture until they're all gone. Egg shells I find like this too, the larger fragments persist for longer than fish bones but not as long as shellfish by any means.8-)

[QUOTE=bower;570445]I have a little experience with oyster shells - a one time thing, when my son was a youngster and had a bad flu I bought a small bag of oysters to make him some broth. The shells got tossed in the garden. Yes I come across one now and then, they are mostly still intact after maybe 20 years. :lol: This is in spite of the shells being boiled to make broth.
We also eat lots of mussels whenever we get the chance, and those shells I toss in the garden - into the paths where foot traffic will crush them up over time. They are much thinner than oyster shells but still are very persistent. It's pointless to put them in the compost because they don't decompose. Eventually they will add calcium to the soil but we're talking on a scale of... maybe hundreds or even thousands of years. :shock::?: Archaeologists here were able to learn something about the history of native peoples, by the "middens" of mussel shells they left behind in their camps. So... it's not a readily available material for a vegetable garden.
Shrimp and crab shells, fish bones also will decompose in a few years at most or at least will be reduced to very small fragments that add texture until they're all gone. Egg shells I find like this too, the larger fragments persist for longer than fish bones but not as long as shellfish by any means.8-)[/QUOTE]

Yep we were talking above about a way to pulverized all the shells. The bag of oyster shells I linked to are for sized for pullets. So that's going to be pretty finely ground. That would certainly be easier to finish pulverizing. Than say the whole blue point shells I would retrieve from the bay. Now in powder form the nutrients would be immediately available for plant uptake. Right?

Oyster shells are just one ingredient naturally available around here. I am sure just adding a bag of lime would be easier.

I started this post trying to figure out ways to build new rows on top of my hard clay soil. Just like Cole_Robbie has been doing & I didn't want to spend a arm and a leg. I want to do this organically on the upper property. Garden number 1 is not organic and truth be told it doesn't get full sun anyway. The plants are doing good thou I must admit.

I really don't have a lot of leaf material to gather in the fall. I could buy top soil by the yard but i have no way to know whats really in it. It would be hard to say I am organic if I do that. So this is a bit of a challenge for sure.

I am going home to Southern Maryland again tomorrow and i will be checking all the beaches for the seaweed. I think it's a little early still in the summer for mass grass gathering but we shall see. Crabs are in full swing tho, so i will stop by a few places and see if it's a viable option to get some truck loads of shells.

It's a pipe dream but a fun one...

I pick up a few strings (10-20 ft+) of kelp from my beach visits. A blue Ikea bag is about the right amount to lug around comfortably.

I lay down the long leaves directly on top of my potting mix as a mulch layer, and it swells with each watering, it gets nice and slimy underneath with lots of life at the interface. It gets covered with regular bark mulch and the plants are happy. Loose porous beach rocks are placed on top, I figure micronutrients leach out of there too.

Chop up the seaweed strings BEFORE they dry. The leaves do crumble nicely when dry. Great when worked into the soil.

The curly-fry pieces last forever.

All of this reflects come tasting time.

there was a movie called The Field. it might have starred richard harris, i can't remember the costars name. i just remember the other guy had dark hair. the movie took place in ireland or the british isles. richard played this old farmer who covered his field in wheel barrows full of seaweed. so, pile it on. its good stuff.

got it. tom berenger was the other guy.

keith

That California Kelp is scary.
 

[QUOTE=Gerardo;570480]I pick up a few strings (10-20 ft+) of kelp from my beach visits. A blue Ikea bag is about the right amount to lug around comfortably.

I lay down the long leaves directly on top of my potting mix as a mulch layer, and it swells with each watering, it gets nice and slimy underneath with lots of life at the interface. It gets covered with regular bark mulch and the plants are happy. Loose porous beach rocks are placed on top, I figure micronutrients leach out of there too.

Chop up the seaweed strings BEFORE they dry. The leaves do crumble nicely when dry. Great when worked into the soil.

The curly-fry pieces last forever.

All of this reflects come tasting time.[/QUOTE]

We spent time when I was younger around Ft Ord/Montery Bay.We used to swim in that ice co;d Pacific water and those Kelp tendrils would wrap around you as if "alive".I am glad that "Jaws"was not out then.Sometimes you see some shadows in the Kelp forests when free diving.Still gives me the shudders.

[QUOTE=MrSalvage;570464] we were talking above about a way to pulverize all the shells... . Now in powder form the nutrients would be immediately available for plant uptake. Right?
...I could buy top soil by the yard but i have no way to know whats really in it. It would be hard to say I am organic if I do that. So this is a bit of a challenge for sure.[/QUOTE]

Bower’s questions in post 22 may not be an answer but have a lot of weight.
I’m not sure plants could make use of the substances found in finely ground shells. It reminds me of the (very) early XXth century when some people drank water from a bottle full of rusting nails, thinking they would enrich their blood with iron. In big quantities it might soften a hard clay soil, just like adding sand, which would be faster.


MrSalvage intends to till “a bunch of rows about 4 ft wide by 100 yds”. Improving the soil significantly may require 5 inches of kelp every year for at least 5 years. Simple math will give an impressive volume…


I quite understand money can be a problem. Buying a truckload of good earth from time to time might be solution if you can contact a building contractor, a digging company that can give the precise origin of the earth it can deliver. Personally I had to buy 9 or 10 trucks of top soil (the upper12 inches) to add a garden to my new home, I knew exactly where the earth came from. I do hope MrSalvage will find a solution, his garden could first be a bit smaller than intended then grow year after year…

Adding sand can have a lot of i'll effects as well. Isn't playground sand for the kids special? If you read the labels on the bags of sand at lowe's and home depot they are not good. Certainly isn't the kind of sand you want to go put into your garden. So you half to be wary of where it comes from. I certainly don't know all the in's and out of it.

We drove to Maryland today and stopped by a few beaches. Like i was saying a few post back it's a bit early for seaweed. We struck out in that regard on this trip. However I have a lead on crab shells. So it wasn't a waste of the day. Maybe i will get lucky and come up with a few truck loads...

[QUOTE=kurt;570550]We spent time when I was younger around Ft Ord/Montery Bay.We used to swim in that ice co;d Pacific water and those Kelp tendrils would wrap around you as if "alive".I am glad that "Jaws"was not out then.Sometimes you see some shadows in the Kelp forests when free diving.Still gives me the shudders.[/QUOTE]

Some of my favorite diving is the kelp bed on Catalina Island,especially in the winter when it's good and healthy. That said,the first trip we made there,I had some minor freak-out episodes when the kelp tangled in my fins and I'd feel trapped.Took awhile to get used to that.

Not to get too morbid,but their are some drownings due to that thrashing/gulping sea water by inexperienced swimmers.We always took our fins off,never used diving equipment for that entanglement reason.But I sure love ABALONE and that would be the only reason for me to jump in.