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January
February
March
April
All across this land you will find that one half of your crops grow just fine, and the other half struggle just to survive, this is the nature of the environment, as well as the different requirements of the plants.
But thanks to these young crafty Chinese kids, there are now accurate tools to easily measure critical limits of soil ph and nutrient content in the soil.
This tool alone could reduce a 50 year work load to just 5 years.
The trick being, having the right ph well drained soil to go with the just right amount of nutrients, for the plants that have a different local ph or drainage conditions than the one you are currently in.
This is best done with containers but as usual, its easier said than done, for one you want to be able to use as much of the local organically treated soil as you can, and then adjust the ph, drainage, and nutrients for the plants desired.
The bigger problem is the time, energy, and now cost to do all the buying and endless mixing, and since its endless i'll have to bring in some machine(s) to do the mixing, but it could take a number of years to do much beyond small container growing.
So with each successful yearly small container success, you can move to larger containers, and thats what i'll start here with the lower ph plants. The date is 4-14-2025 and a mixer has been found and should be in service very soon, but the videos of the month have mostly been lost somehow.
The fruit trees are a different story, apparently if you dont shape and control the first years growth (in the right environment), these store bought trees just reach heights that wont allow them to feed or support fruit properly, so by cutting and then splicing the tree, you force a new growth to then be shaped into the next best thing after a missed first year opportunity. After that, the older the tree the better as it appears the base never gets bigger than its original cut size is my guess, we'll just have to wait and see about that one, I saw this on a Victory Garden tv show but never caught the results until perhaps now.
MAY
​With these tools, and by trying enough different things, you should be able to discover a problem in short order, the time to resolve it, is another matter.
Knowing the difference between good and [bad advice, (lemon juice and apple cider to lower ph., kelp and its derivatives)], or perhaps misdiagnosing the many small issues a plant might have, takes time to trust, but is well worth it in the long run.
Right now we've hit the nail on the head with the fruit trees and eggplant numbers, and are close on some others. So w/o having a uniform mix of soil ph and fertilizer, you are going to have to have mixed results, and some of this is seen this month.
I found this combination of blended soil holds water well, so if you find yourself watering inbetween rains for any reason, now you've might have gone too far in one area,(this bodes well for future watering needs though). As can be seen with these tomatoes, i'm still trying to find the best ph range for tomatoes by examining the health of the plants, and then taking the readings of the healthy plants first, in that way I can double check the veracity of the published #'s numbers.
And with this case, I can tell you that until you get the nearly correct (fully mixed ph) soil readings of the plants requirements, there is no benefit to raising the fertilizer amounts, as the plant is unable to use the excess, and could even have a challenging negative reaction. Not only this, but as the ph drops under the 5.5 range, fewer fertilizers are even effectively absorbable into those plants, blueberries being one, (but now responding very well to proper conditions) and the eggplant and potatoes approaching it.
June
​The old cement mixer has been an over the top addition to soil improvement, you can afford to add less store bought organic material, b/c the capilary efficiency holds more water at depth, which is crucial for thriving growth, I have one over fertilized small plant, it does good until the part of the day with the full sun and heat, so i'm hoping over time it balances out, plus its a good indication that the meter is working properly.
In the past its been difficult to start seeds in the full heat of summer, but this combination of cup, large container, and water tray could have some promising results. As seen by this cabbage start up. I can start one a month, up to the mid-end of aug, where then the sun angle drops and some taller plants tilt to much toward the sun at harvest to be worth the effort.
You'll need at least a weeks worth of growth before the first near 100 degree day or the roots cant take it, but after that, with the lower 90's, everything seems to be ok. The combination of trays and containers holds and maintains a good amount of water with this 15% store bought organic material mixed with seasoned organic soil.
The above ground plastic containers seem to work better than the same plants planted in below ground ones, and a fair sized dug hole with this material seems to do better than a buried container so far. The beans and tomatoes are big consumers of water, so perhaps the cloth containers with a tray to grow the tomatoes, and a custom cage, (depending on just how large a plant can grow with these favorable conditions), and these could be good automatic plant candidates.
July
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As the season grows on its plain to see that the larger the plant, the greater the need to container the thriving soil conditions needed to get the plant to the finish line, the smaller ones can each have their own perfectly conditioned plot for best results. As always, time tested proves to be the best indicator as seen with the tomatoes, but seed selection and final cage size for future design is just as important there.
I'm going to create a melon patch with the extra clay from the bug out room, one large containor to hold the soil and plants, and surrounding clay to improve the pollination rate, i'll get 3 different types of melons under the peaches.
I'm trying some organic things to do with previously digested nutrients, but the shorter term problem is getting enough material for more than just a plant or two, and the list of these promising nutrients keeps expanding as does the time to see the results.
August
​ I'm getting rather excited about how some of these previously digested nutrients, are having turbo charged results where the plants and trees are concerned. I've found a whole new world of these previously digested, products both in liquid and solid form. But the quandry is always how much of which ingredients to use and mix together to get the maxium benefit, and when.
Plus then naturally ones ability to either produce these yourself over time, or find the premade organic liquified substitute you need to fill the nutrient or mineral vacuum left behind by say, the early yellowing of leaves. This is probably the plants reaction to the need of quickly digestable food to perform a certain task like flowering or seeding.
The bigger problem for the non organic nutirent industry at this point is that recent data shows that there is a growth benefit to non organic sources,(over nothing at all) but, after a short while the growth suddenly stops, and then no amount of any ingredients used, is able to spark the growth back up, leading me to believe that it then becomes an INHIBITOR of growth to most any and every plant, and must now wait the winter out to reset the growth cycle rather than continue the growth, this is what the evidence is showing.
Next month I'll publish some of these new finds and show why I choose them at this time of the season.
September
At some point I will trim this peach tree for a test run at next years peaches, I dont want the fruit to weigh down the branches as if I left it alone some of the fruit would probably hit the ground.
And seeing is believing when it comes to these previously digested nutrients, over the next couple months i'll circumvent the electronic payment system to make a way for people to pay a few bucks to find the magic of these promising methods. Its simple things like stripping the calcium off an egg shell, or saving banana peels to make your own highly digestible potassium magnesium compost, or even someone else's creations that makes these nutrients easier and quicker to work with, and still get the outrageous growth factor of putting in the hard work yourself.
October
November
Now that the carrots are here and until I make a top all I've really done is make a deer buffet, so this temporary top will due until I can find the router bit needed to trim, then paint and re net the top. Ill leave the weeds to protect the strawberries from any frost and clear them away in March
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