ponytug
Super Member
We compost plant materials and horse/cow manure. We have enough visits from skunks/opossums/raccoons wandering through that we don't include human food waste in our compost, but I would suggest trying it out to see what it is like where you live.
Any method to get soluble nutrients in helps, whether it is Miracle-Gro, compost tea, or kelp extract, or adding composted manure. How much, how often depends on what you are growing, and what your soil and water are like. Rain water adds nonzero amounts of nitrogen that city, or well, water won't. Tomatoes are heavy feeders, cyclamen almost nothing at all.
It has been a long time, but IIRC, the "Square Foot Gardening" book had some nice tips in it, but the advice is now available all over; Square Foot Gardening Foundation, Phipps Conservatory, just search for it. A friend on Cape Cod managed to keep his soil temp over sixty degrees all January, growing an amazing amount of vegetables on a couple of 4x8' beds with hoops for winter warmth.
Fresh horse manure, and coffee grounds, do wonders for roses; they lower the pH and have lots of soluble nutrients.
All the best,
Peter
Any method to get soluble nutrients in helps, whether it is Miracle-Gro, compost tea, or kelp extract, or adding composted manure. How much, how often depends on what you are growing, and what your soil and water are like. Rain water adds nonzero amounts of nitrogen that city, or well, water won't. Tomatoes are heavy feeders, cyclamen almost nothing at all.
It has been a long time, but IIRC, the "Square Foot Gardening" book had some nice tips in it, but the advice is now available all over; Square Foot Gardening Foundation, Phipps Conservatory, just search for it. A friend on Cape Cod managed to keep his soil temp over sixty degrees all January, growing an amazing amount of vegetables on a couple of 4x8' beds with hoops for winter warmth.
Fresh horse manure, and coffee grounds, do wonders for roses; they lower the pH and have lots of soluble nutrients.
All the best,
Peter