Just not ready to go there...

Have you tested your soil lately? These are the results from my latest test.

Three years ago the test results were very different. I lost the hard copy to a trade shower last spring so i don't have it to post as a comparison. The pH started out around 5.3-very acidic. Calcium, magnesium and phosphorus were also very low. Potassium, interestingly enough, was sitting right about where it is now. I added lime, dolomite, gypsum and bone meal as directed in the 'fertilizer recommendations' section of the test when i completed the initial bed preparation.  I have continued to add horse/rabbit/poultry manure and fish scraps during replanting. It's not a good idea to randomly add inputs without knowing what your baseline levels are but that's exactly what i did after the initial amendment, using azomite to add micro nutrients and/or a variant of Steve Solomon's complete organic fertilizer to replace outputs from time to time. I plan to do more extensive soil testing next year and hope that i haven't mucked things up too badly.

The big test surprise for me is the very high phosphorus result. It could mean that i went a little crazy with the bone meal, but it might also mean that a lot of phosphorus was bound up with aluminum at the lower pH. When the soil was limed, calcium replaced the aluminum creating calcium phosphates which are more water soluble and readily available.  (I love that soil science is mostly chemistry but it does make my head spin a little.)  So what to do about it? Many of my garden favorites are heavy phosphorus users so i expect the levels to correct themselves over time as long as i don't keep adding more. My main input this year will be nitrogen in the form of expensive blood and feather meal. There is a readily available and free source of nitrogen available to each of us but i'm just not ready to go there.  Yet.

An option to be aware of, just in case.

If you are in Hawaii and are curious about how your soil stacks up, basic soil testing is available through the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR) for around $12.

February's Garden

Is it March? So soon? But i'm not ready!  I've finally worked my way through the dull up and downloading of pictures and find myself loitering in February still.  Join me for a quick stroll through last month's garden.

 Roselle, grown from seeds from Jane's garden.  Delicious simmered with lemongrass and ginger and sugar. Can't get enough of it. Love it, must plant more.  Rose beetles are fond of it too, can you see the telltale lace?

Volunteer broccoli, sprouting along the rough border of the garden. It's unamended territory and i'm curious to see how things will turn out.

Oregon Peas

Two flowers per node promise a generous harvest.

More Oregon peas.

Vertically challenged?

Isar

Butter yellow and crooked neck, they are his favorite.

Rainbow Lacinato Kale

After the storm. Good for kale chips.

Golden Sweet

A tallish vine with tumbles of shy, violet shaded flowers followed by glowing yellow pods. The pods are thin walled and crispy, good in salads or briefly singed in a wok.

Golden Sweet

The first harvest was just in time for Valentine's Day ; )

Brown Popping Chickpea

So far just a few flowers and one pod, can you see it all out of focus and to the right? Maybe a later planting, in drier weather, would do better. On warm, dry days the leaves are dusted with fine drops of a clear liquid.  My hand tastes sour after i brush it across the top of the plants. 

Perona

'A bush bean' the catalog said, but these vines easily scaled the five foot trellis and then wanted more. I nibbled on a few raw pods when they were small and i think they would make fine eating at that stage. They were OK as fresh shellies but the thick skins puckered and wrinkled in an unappealing way. They are still a few weeks away from dry beans, i think.

Chaco Canyon

The first few showy sprays of white flowers produced these but then the flowering stopped. I hope it's just a hiccup because the one pod i sampled was really good!

Crimson Flowered Favas

They were the first beans to flower. Aren't they pretty? But no beans, not one, still yet.  I found this great post that you can read if you'd like to learn more about their history. I wonder how much longer i should wait for beans?

Lacinato Kale

This is my much loved Lacinato Kale (in case you missed the caption).  I chopped the original plants down with a machete a few months ago, around the time they started to get taller than me. These are the pups, blown over in a wind storm and now growing straight up from where they fell. We mostly eat ours raw, in salads. How do you do kale?

That's all for now. Ahui hou!