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            [564593] => Green Manures to Increase Soil Fertility
            [559365] => A Dream Come True
            [558802] => Container Planting- Choosing flowers for scent and colour
            [557514] => Nitrogen Fixation
            [555953] => Plant Nutrition
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            [564593] => Cover crops or green manures are specifically grown  to be turned back into the soil. They bring nutrients to the surface, from deep within the soil, and by the process of photosynthesis turn them into plant tissue, they may even fix nitrogen. Members of the Leguminosae family, clover, vetch, peas and alfalfa have this ability. Other crops that can be used as green manures include fall rye, barley, buckwheat and a variety of grasses. Ask at your local feed and grain outlet for recommendations.  Green manures increase soil fertility, they add organic matter to the soil thus improving the soils structure and they are useful in a crop rotation program  Usually green manure crops are seeded in fall, after the area has been harvested, and ploughed down in the spring. This is not practical for legumes since they can be difficult to establish and need a full year before they can be ploughed down. Legumes are best planted in the spring after all danger of frost has passed, in an area of fallow ground. If you don't have a lot of garden space this will not be possible In most of Canada fall rye is the best crop to sow after harvest. It will germinate, remain dormant over the winter and start to grow again in spring. Turn the crop back into the ground when it is young and juicy, 4-5 inches high, not when it is dry and gone to seed.However, in the far north green manure crops are not hardy.  To use them you will have to divide your garden in half. In spring you can sow part of it to a green manure crop,  turning it back into the soil in the fall, and plant your garden in the other half.
            [559365] => Today I signed a contract with Caitlin Press, to write a book of approximately 65000 words, to be finished and delivered by June of 2011.I've already written about half of it, the words I wrote were what got me to this point. Caitlin Press sent the original manuscript to an editor, who extracted and distilled my thoughts, giving me a direction and focus, for my book, that I never could have come up with by myself. The book is about the three gardens and the houses attached to them that I have lived in, designed and built for most of my adult life. It is full of anecdotes and information about life, gardening and what to do with the harvest. Now I have to finish writing the book.I’ve got to stop biting my nails and get on with it.
            [558802] => I live in a house with a huge garden area but I still like to have pots of plants around, they give another dimension to the garden. In northern gardens potted plants are: Transitional- houseplants or tender perennials you over winter inside the house or they are temporary- annual plants you leave outside until repeated frosts kill them. Choosing pots.The bigger the pot the better, although if it is not frost proof it will crack. I learned this through bitter experience. I now bring all my clay pots, full of soil, inside every fall and store them in the basement. I abhor plastic pots. I do have one half whiskey barrel which I happily leave outside all winter. I just wish I could find more. Big pots are easier to take care of because they do not dry out as fast in the hot summer sun.There is room to have more than one plant per pot so you can get creative with different shapes, textures and colours of plants.Choosing plantsI think of scent and colour when I choose plants to grow together in one pot. I plant my red pom pom Dahlia in the middle of my half barrel and scatter Matthiola longipetala (evening scented stocks) seeds on the rest of the surface. The Dahlia leaves are big, and its bright red flowers effectively camouflage the rather drab looking flowers and weedy foliage of the Matthiola. However, as soon as the sun goes down the Matthiola perks up, its flowers open widely and in the half light of dusk it’s now luminescent flowers, as Gertrude Jekyll wrote more than a century ago, “pour out upon the still night air a lavish gift of sweetest fragrance." The best spot for this pot is by an open window so you can enjoy the scent indoors or place it on a patio or deck. In the above photo the Matthiola are the tall nondescript flowers to the left of the red Dahlia. Tagetes tenuifolia (Orange gem or Lemon gem marigolds)  form a low mound of lovely green ferny foliage covered in tiny yellow or orange blooms. Their flowers have a lemony scent and best of all they are edible. Toss them into salads or use to decorate a cake. Plants are easily grown from seed.I like to plant these with another scented flower Heliotropium arborescens. Its lilac coloured flowers contrast nicely with the orange and yellow Tagetes. I buy this one already grown since it takes longer than 3 months to flower from seed, and in northern gardens that is not practical. I like to save my limited indoor seeding space for tomatoes, peppers and other edibles. Unlike some of the gigantic Heliotrope plants I have seen in some southern gardens it remains small, during the short summers in my northern garden,  so it does not overpower the tiny Tagetes. The other reason I picked Heliotrope is of course because of its smell. Some gardeners liken it to the sugary aroma of cherry pie while others swear it smells like baby powder. No matter, I can’t imagine not having it in my garden. In the big photo above the pot on the left contains these plants in flower.Other annual flowers to plant in pots, that I have grown from seed include-Schizanthus pinnatus  (butterfly flower) resembles a tiny orchid and comes in a variety of colours.Cladanthus arabicus the plants ferny foliage, when pinched, emits an unusual spicy fragrance. Its bright yellow daisy like flowers will brighten anyone’s day.Brachycome iberidifolia (swan river daisy)  has tiny daisy like flowers, mostly blue but also white, pink and violet. Convolvulus tricolor (dwarf morning glory) rewards you with gorgeous flowers. The outside edge of each flower is the most beautiful shade of blue, tapering to a white star shaped middle surrounding a yellow throat. Be sure to get seeds of the cultivar ‘Royal Ensign’. This compact plant grows only 2 feet tall making it ideal for pots. Plant a convolvulus in the middle of a large pot. Surround it with several Cladanthus plants and one each of Brachycome and Schizanthus for a colourful display, or, as the periodicals are fond of telling, us a riot of colour.
            [557514] => Nitrogen fixation is an extraordinary process, whereby certain plants like- peas, beans, clover, alfalfa and alder trees take nitrogen from the soil air and convert it into a form they can use. The plants use Rhizobium bacteria to help them fix the nitrogen. The bacteria form little bumps or nodules on the roots allowing them to take in the nitrogen and convert it. I decided to pull up one of the clover plants, from the lawn I’m so proud of, to see if nitrogen fixation was taking place. Sure enough, as you can see from the photograph, there are nodules on the roots.  Different plants use different species of Rhizobium bacteria. If the right bacteria are not present in the soil, nitrogen fixation will not occur. Many garden centres sell an inoculant (a form of the bacteria) you can coat your seeds with to help with nitrogen fixation. There are different inoculants for different plants. William Dam Seeds sells one for the common legumes you plant in your garden, such as peas and beans.Despite all this nitrogen fixation is not guaranteed. After the crop has been removed some nitrogen will remain in the soil which is beneficial for the next crop.
            [555953] => Plants take in mineral elements and water from the soil, carbon dioxide from the air, and energy from sunlight, they convert all this into a complex food that they use to grow. Typically plants get their nutrients from the soil. Of the three primary elements, Nitrogen N, Phosphorus P, and Potassium K, Nitrogen is the most important. The plant uses N to make chlorophyll (the green pigment found in most plants) amino acids, DNA and hormones. Without nitrogen the plant would barely survive. Secondary nutrients- sulphur, calcium, magnesium, and micronutrients –Zinc, Iron, Copper, Boron, Molybdenum and Chlorine are needed in much smaller amounts.Soil TestsSoil tests are one way to find out the fertility level of your garden soil. It is expensive and not really necessary for a home garden. The best way to determine soil deficiencies is too look at your plants.   The  Certified Organic Associations of BC (COABC)lists testing labs in Canada the USA and other countries, it provides websites, phone numbers and addresses. Below is a link to a  PDF file you may find useful as a guide on how to take a soil sample.  http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/resmgmt/publist/600Series/611100-1.pdfThe results of your soil test should be used as a guide to understanding your soil. There are two ways to fertilize your soil.Chemical FertilizersChemical fertilizers supply the major nutrients, NPK and some of the lesser nutrients. The numbers on the bag represent the amounts of each major nutrient in the mixture. For example, a bag with the numbers 15 30 15 contains 15 percent Nitrogen 30 percent Phosphorus and 15 percent Potassium.Chemical fertilizers are made in a factory. Essential chemicals, required for plant growth, are extracted from natural ingredients. This concentrated form or ionic nutrient is water soluble and immediately available to the plant. In spring the fertilizer is dissolved in water and poured it onto your garden where it is easily and quickly taken up by the plants.However, Too much chemical fertilizer can burn the plant. Chemical fertilizers should never be applied when the soil is dry because again they will burn the plant. It is very easy to over fertilize. Too much nitrogen can cause excessive foliage growth and little if no flowers.  Excess nitrogen from these fertilizers is susceptible to leaching from rainfall and irrigation. Once it moves down below the root line it is no longer available to plants and it is liable to get into ground water and contaminate it.The production of processed fertilizers creates waste and uses energy. It is also expensive since processed fertilizers will have to be given to the plants every year.  Organic Fertilizers Organic fertilizers are biological and mineral materials that are allowed to break down in the soil through weathering and biological activity. The released nutrients are available to plants when dissolved in water,  the same way as they are in chemical fertilizers. Organic fertilizers have lower concentrations of nutrients and they are released slower than nutrients in processed fertilizers. Larger amounts of organic fertilizers are needed but their effects last longer. Nutrients from organic fertilizers are released slowly throughout the growing season. Temperature and moisture conditions favouring plant growth also favour nutrient release.As manure ages a lot of nutrients are lost to the air or leached away. Some materials take so long to break down they may not be available to the plant until the following year. Repeated applications of manure will provide a long term nutrient supply. Organic fertilizers recycle material that would otherwise be discarded as waste. The manure you put on your garden should be well aged. In my first garden I got manure from my neighbour that had been sitting in a pile, in his paddock, for ten years. It contained no pathogens, or weed seeds and was perfect for my garden.In my new garden I use manure from a friend that has been composted, well turned and heated, in a huge pile for a year. It contains no pathogens or weed seeds. Compost is the ultimate soil conditioner and nutrient supply, since it recycles wastes into plant food.Soil StructureOrganic fertilizers not only feed the plants but they also build up the soil structure- the aggregation of soil minerals and organic particles into lumps, through biological activity and weather, freezing thawing, wetting and drying.   Soils need to have this structure as it -increases the pore size to better facilitate movement of air and water. But aggregates are fragile and easily destroyed if the soil is worked when wet.-Soil granulation increases its water holding capacity. -Increase the cation exchange and retention of nutrients for the plants. ConclusionOrganic fertilizers promote a sustainable system because they are helping the soil to maintain and look after itself. Chemical fertilizers do not depend on soil activity, microbes, to feed the plant. The soil needs to be tilled so the plant roots can get down to hold the plant up. The tilling also fluffs up the soil to allow water penetration. Water is essential, the fertilizer needs to be dissolved in water so the plants can take it up. In a chemical system the soil becomes an inert substrate used to hold the plants upright.
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