Thread: Organic Convert
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Old March 1, 2012   #37
b54red
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Alabama
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I have found another problem with adding large quantities of manures over years and that is the buildup of phosphate. The only chemical fertilizer I use anymore is something like Miracle Grow which doesn't bother worms. If you can find cottonseed meal in the 50 pound bags at a reasonable cost it will do more to draw worms into your garden than anything I have ever found. It is also a very good organic fertilizer at a reasonable price. I add it to my beds along with some alfalfa pellets (about half as much) every time I get ready to plant any kind of crop. I will fertilize occasionally with a water soluble fertilizer to give certain crops a boost they need at different times.

I now have beds full of wonderfully rich organic matter and teeming with worms. It took me years to get them to this point and it took tons of manure, compost, leaves, grass clippings, hay, peanut hulls, mushroom compost, cottonseed meal, and alfalfa pellets. Now my beds are so full I have a hard time working in just a little compost and cottonseed meal. This will be the first year in over 20 years that I will not be adding bulk organic matter to my beds because there is just no where to put it.

It will take you a few years to get really good results so don't get too impatient. If you need to give the plants a little boost a bit of Miracle Grow won't run off the worms and it might make the difference in a poor crop and a good crop. One thing that will quickly get the worms to leave your garden is liberal applications of something like 10-10-10 or Ammonium Nitrate. Within two years of stopping the use of the bagged granular fertilizers my garden was getting a fair number of worms. When I started using cottonseed meal the population exploded.
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