Greetings everybody,
It is going to be a real stinker of a day here today. The humidity at 7:00 am was already nasty.
I was out in the garden just now watering. The Weather Network is calling for rain today, thunderstorms in fact, but the garden will need to make it through another miserable hot day before the rain comes. Actually the plants love the nice hot weather but they need water. And here is where the problem lies.
Our soil is very sandy. VERY free draining. That basically means very dry. So, we water.
Now here is where the comparison part comes in. As you know we have installed 5 raised beds in one corner of the garden. They will be the first of many but it was at least a start. We filled those beds with what is called triple mix. This is a combination of top soil, compost and well rotted manure. I have to admit that this is NOT the best triple mix I have ever bought as it contained about a million perennial weed seeds and an astonishing amount of pea stone. I daresay it was mixed up in their yard and that is how the stone worked it's way in. I will not order triple mix from them again but will see what other options they have. But I digress....
The vegetable that I am comparing today is Courgette, or Zucchini.
I started them in pots and planted them all out at the same time. Some went into a raised bed and some went directly into the garden soil. I was very interested to note that the plants in the raised bed are far and away larger and thriving. All the plants are doing well but the difference is very evident. Other than their growing medium they have been treated exactly the same. No extra fertilizer and they are both watered when necessary, which is pretty much every day here unless it actually does rain.
Here is the plant in the open ground. There are three of them so I measured the middle sized one to be fair. The total plant is 11" in diameter and the largest leaf was just 4".
Now, compare that with the plant in the raised bed. Sorry the picture is not better but I had some difficulty holding the tape measure and the camera. :)
The plant is a very healthy 28" and the leaf is 10".
I believe that this comparison is definitive proof of what organic growers have always said. Feed the soil and the soil feeds the plant. The triple mix may not have been a great batch but the addition of even that little bit of compost and manure have made the soil just that much better for the plants. I have been convinced of this all along.
Thanks so much for visiting today. If you live in my neck of the woods I hope you can keep cool today. Cheers.
It is going to be a real stinker of a day here today. The humidity at 7:00 am was already nasty.
I was out in the garden just now watering. The Weather Network is calling for rain today, thunderstorms in fact, but the garden will need to make it through another miserable hot day before the rain comes. Actually the plants love the nice hot weather but they need water. And here is where the problem lies.
Our soil is very sandy. VERY free draining. That basically means very dry. So, we water.
Now here is where the comparison part comes in. As you know we have installed 5 raised beds in one corner of the garden. They will be the first of many but it was at least a start. We filled those beds with what is called triple mix. This is a combination of top soil, compost and well rotted manure. I have to admit that this is NOT the best triple mix I have ever bought as it contained about a million perennial weed seeds and an astonishing amount of pea stone. I daresay it was mixed up in their yard and that is how the stone worked it's way in. I will not order triple mix from them again but will see what other options they have. But I digress....
The vegetable that I am comparing today is Courgette, or Zucchini.
I started them in pots and planted them all out at the same time. Some went into a raised bed and some went directly into the garden soil. I was very interested to note that the plants in the raised bed are far and away larger and thriving. All the plants are doing well but the difference is very evident. Other than their growing medium they have been treated exactly the same. No extra fertilizer and they are both watered when necessary, which is pretty much every day here unless it actually does rain.
Here is the plant in the open ground. There are three of them so I measured the middle sized one to be fair. The total plant is 11" in diameter and the largest leaf was just 4".
Now, compare that with the plant in the raised bed. Sorry the picture is not better but I had some difficulty holding the tape measure and the camera. :)
The plant is a very healthy 28" and the leaf is 10".
I believe that this comparison is definitive proof of what organic growers have always said. Feed the soil and the soil feeds the plant. The triple mix may not have been a great batch but the addition of even that little bit of compost and manure have made the soil just that much better for the plants. I have been convinced of this all along.
Thanks so much for visiting today. If you live in my neck of the woods I hope you can keep cool today. Cheers.
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