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Lathyrus tuberosus (Tuberous Pea)

For the second time in a year, my friend Elzo from the Wieringer Akker gave me some of these tubers.  Apparently for him they do very well.  They are a nitrogen fixing perennial tuber, that’s supposed to be very hardy in our climate.

The first time Elzo gave me some of these tubers, I killed them with neglect.  He assures me this is a very difficult thing to do, but I succeeded.

The advice Elzo gave was because the tubers can grow very deep in the ground, it’s easier to harvest if you grow them in a container.  This is what I have, a plastic tub buried in a corner of my garden.

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Salt Spring Seeds, Canada

I get an email from time to time from Dan Jason or someone else working on his website, asking for help getting the word out about both his seed company and seed exchange organization.  I’m only too happy to oblige!

If you live in Canada and are interested in heritage seeds, be sure to visit:

Salt Spring Seeds: Sustainable Canadian seed company selling rare and unusual seeds. Online catalogue includes heirloom tomatoes, quinoa, amaranth, seed garlic and a new zero mile diet kit.

and

Seed and Plant Sanctuary for Canada: We are a charitable organization dedicated to the health and vitality of the earth through the preservation and promotion of heritage seeds.

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Soil Test

I had a soil test of my garden done last summer, and I’ve been meaning to post the results.  Since they are in Dutch, and probably not many of my readers can understand them as they are, I will attempt to translate.  However the original report can be found here.

You can compare this to my earlier do-it-yourself efforts at soil testing.

Measured values are given first, followed by target values in parenthesis if these are given in the original report.

Organic Material   10.3%

Calcium                 2-5%

pH (KCl method)     7.2  (>6.4)

Available Nutrients:

Phosphorus              58   (45)

Potassium                22   (21)

Magnesium              230  (125)

Nitrogen                  1.4  (1.0)

Unavailable Nutrients:

Phosphorus               1370  (1000)

Potassium                     5  (7)

Biological Activity:

Detected mg of CO2 per 100g per 7 days     86   (70)

Conclusions and Advice:

Conclusion:  Soil has a high organic content, and a good pH level.  For most nutrients, there is sufficient to excessive available and unavailable amounts.  There is sufficient nitrogen and biological activity.

Advice:  Add 300 liters of fresh manure or high quality compost per 100m2. As an alternative, 50 liters of dried cow manure per 100m2.  The actual amount varies with crops grown.  Lime loving plants (soft fruit, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, etc) 2 kg of (dolomite) lime per 100m2.  Nitrogen loving plants (soft fruit, potatoes, leaf vegetables, cabbage, beet, etc) only in case of slow growth 500g nitrogen per 100m2 in the form of dry organic fertilizer.  For example, this can be 4Kg bone or blood meal per 100m2.  Further fertilizing is not necessary.

The advice seems to be open to some interpretation.  I probably don’t add quite as much compost as they say here, and I don’t add any of the other fertilizers or manures, but since they say amounts vary with crops grown I guess you could say I’m following the advice.  It’s worth mentioning I also grow a lot of nitrogen fixing plants.

At the same time I could be adding an awful lot of manures and nitrogen fertilizers and also be following the advice.  300 liters of fresh manure per 100m2 is an awful lot!

I think it’s more a part of the culture here to depend on soluble nitrogen in the form of manures or fertilizers, rather than fixed nitrogen, and that may be part of the reason the advice is given in the way it is.  The test doesn’t seem to show fixed nitrogen.

The excessive availability of some of the nutrients is probably related to past chemical fertilizer use.

I purposely waited until the end of the second growing season to do this test, so I had a chance to amend the soil and grow some nitrogen fixing plants.  I also wanted to give any previously used fertilizers a chance to wash away.

I do sometimes notice low nitrogen levels, and I also notice when I grow a heavy feeder like sweet corn, the soil is pretty depleted for the next season.  Mostly my experience is that my soil is in pretty good shape, and this test seems to confirm that.  It can also be true that some of the excessively high levels of the major nutrients (NPK) can tie up and make unavailable some of the micronutrients, and I could be having problems with this.

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US Justice Department and USDA to Investigate Monsanto

Hearings in Iowa are to begin to investigate possible antitrust activities of Monsanto.

What do you think?  Is the fact that 92% of America’s soybeans and 85% of corn are being grown with Monsanto’s seeds a problem?  Is it just as Monsanto claims that they have a superior product so it’s natural for farmers to want to grow their seeds?

Is it normal that in 2000 enough seeds to plant an acre of Round Up ready soybeans cost $17 and now ten years later as much $50?  I guess this is just inflation.

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Starting Peas Indoors

I set a batch of peas out a few days ago, and I’ve just started another indoors.

These past two years I’ve been using a method I found on the Real Seeds website, in the archives of their newsletters I think.

The basic problem in our area is if you direct sow pea seeds, they often just don’t come up.  I guess there are a few reasons for this, rotting in cold ground and getting eaten by mice, perhaps others.  Anyway the solution is to start them indoors.

I used to start them in individual pots, but this was really time consuming as well as needing a lot of potting soil.  The secret I learned from Real seeds is to just sprout them in paper towels (called kitchen roll in some places)!  That’s all you need is for the seeds to have sprouted, and they won’t rot in the ground and the mice won’t eat them!  This really saves a lot of trouble.

When you plant them, instead of sowing heavily in expectation of germination that’s less than 100% and thinning later, you can sow the distance apart you want the plants to be, because most will grow.

This has worked really well for me so far!  Does anyone else grow peas this way?