Soil Minerals

Inspired by the works of Masanobu Fukuoka and his students, the ethics and principles of permaculture and its applications around the world, the underground studies of soil fertility, the many creative ecological gardeners out there, and the overall philosophy of the lazy farmer, we work every day, a little bit each day, on our almost 1/2-acre plot of ground at Historic Penn Farm in New Castle, DE.  We are experiencing the evolutions that come with cultivation of land - the weeds that are born from the farmer's hoe, the opportunistic non-native invasives that take every chance at life on the full-sun woods' edge, the rabbits that inhabit the surrounding orchard grasslands taking interest in the tips of succulent cruciferous and beet family crops, and, strangely to us, the entire stems of young tomato plants, and the first signs of crop eating insects- letting us know that it will take some time before our implementation of soil fertility boosters will correct our soil imbalances.  We are on the most pocket change of budgets in this endeavor.  We hope to document and share some of the small investments that make large impacts on common issues of soil cultivation - the real work of farming.  First up: using mineral blends to balance soil chemistry.

While we would first happily digress into a formal introduction on soil minerals, we instead will point your attention to some online resources:

SoilMinerals.com
CropServicesIntl.com - and the book The Non-Toxic Farming Handbook
Acres USA Magazine

Soil chemistry balancing begins with a proper soil test with recommendations on mineral and biological applications specific to your soil's conditions.  However, when you have little to no budget, the second best option is a broad spectrum mineral meal.  Broad spectrum mineral meals include a host of natural rock and earth mineral sources together with biological activators such as beneficial bacteria and fungal species.  If your mineral meal does not come with biological activators, just find one that does!  SoilMinerals.com offers an Agricola mineral blend product, and CropServicesIntl.com offers a mineral meal called COMPLETE.  We at Delaware Permaculture have come to blend COMPLETE with rock phosphate and the trace mineral boron to address the particular soil needs of most soils of the Delaware and Southeast PA Piedmont regions and offer it in a product we call Bio-Pulvis found at the Delaware Permaculture Shop.

Applying mineral meals is like flouring a bread dough board or sprinkling fairy dust.  Safe to handle, just evenly disperse the powder on the surface of your soil then rake in or shovel under.  If you have raised beds, just water in thoroughly after applications.  If your beds are already planted and mulched, you can also sprinkle then water in thoroughly.  So here are some photos of us doing just this on our keyhole garden beds that were dug in with compost about 12 - 18" deep:

Note the light white powder dusting of Bio-Pulvis on the beds in foreground and behind

  

Adding Bio-Pulvis to mulched keyhole bed (can just make out the bean seedlings poking through)

First watering in to be followed by all day showers

Yes, it's that simple.  Later on, we will discuss foliar feeding of Bio-Pulvis with Fish Emulsion and Liquid Seaweed, so stay tuned!!  We welcome your inquiries at info@depermaculture.com