Milorganite and Purchases

The grass is starting to awaken very slightly (so of course we'll be getting 2 to 4 inches of snow tomorrow). I put down 144 lbs of Milorganite as a feeding now that the dog food has been consumed by the birds and worms.

I ordered 200 lbs of kelp meal from Dirt Works for $258 including shipping. That's a bit expensive, but I can't get it locally and that's enough for the whole year. I also bought a second EZ Flo system from Dripworks and a 50 pound bag of Sul-Po-Mag from Planet Natural. That should take care of most of my needs for the year as far as extras go. Other than that, the plan is for soybean meal in April, May, June, August, and September, and Milorganite in July and October.

Liming the Lawn

Well, the weather's fair for late February, if you can call 38° fair. At least it's sunny.

I picked up four bags of dolomitic limestone (about 20% calcium and 10% magnesium) today at Lowe's for about $4 each--I spend a bit more for the pelletized. That gets 22 lbs per thousand square feet down, which is about 4 pounds of calcium and 2 pounds of magnesium per thousand.

That should only be enough to move the pH of the soil about a tenth of a point, so I won't worry about it. Since I'm sitting at a near-perfect pH of 6.8, I have no desire to shift it around at all.

I also took the opportunity to drop 18 lbs per thousand square feet of Milorganite on the gardens so they have something to work with as spring starts up (shortly! I already have 200 sprouting early bulbs).

Last Year's Totals

I took the record of last year's totals, including what I did, and included it below for your perusal. Please note that my totals are very high as I'm trying to transform very poor subsurface clay into a decent environment.

For the columns the amounts are pounds per thousand square feet. N, P, and K are calculated off the item put down and the pounds used.

Only the total organic amount at the bottom (over a ton!) is the complete amount added.

I tend to use 2-1-2 (N-P-K) for Alfalfa, 7-1-2 for Soybean Meal, 5-2-0 (from the bag) for Milorganite, and 1-0-2 for Kelp Meal. Lime provides no nutrients, per se, but does release calcium and magnesium (I use dolomitic lime) over time.

Date	N	P	K	Organics	Iron	Other Notes
3/1/2008	0.39	0.16	0.31	15.7		Alfalfa
3/14/2008	0.12	0.00	0.22	11.5		Kelp meal
3/26/2008	1.20	0.40	0.00	20.0	0.80	Milorganite
4/10/2008	0.50	0.07	0.14	7.1		Soybean meal
4/19/2008	0.76	0.17	0.14	12.3	0.21	Soybean, Milorganite, lime
4/24/2008	1.50	0.21	0.43	21.4		Soybean meal
5/3/2008	0.25	0.10	0.00	5.0	0.20	Milorganite
5/7/2008	0.26	0.10	0.00	5.1	0.21	Milorganite
5/23/2008	1.48	0.59	0.00	29.5	1.18	Milorganite
6/7/2008	0.40	0.06	0.11	5.7		Soybean meal
6/21/2008	0.60	0.09	0.17	8.6		Soybean meal
7/4/2008	0.51	0.21	0.00	10.3	0.41	Milorganite
7/19/2008	0.51	0.21	0.00	10.3	0.41	Milorganite
7/26/2008	0.24	0.06	0.16	0		Miracle Gro, lime
8/2/2008	1.00	0.14	0.29	14.3		Soybean meal
8/4/2008	0.17	0.07	0.13	6.7		Alfalfa
8/16/2008	1.00	0.14	0.29	14.3		Soybean meal
8/27/2008	1.00	0.14	0.29	14.3		Soybean meal
8/31/2008	0.26	0.10	0.00	5.1	0.21	Milorganite
9/10/2008	1.00	0.14	0.29	14.3		Soybean meal
9/24/2008	1.00	0.14	0.29	14.3		Soybean meal
10/4/2008	1.00	0.41	0.00	20.6	0.82	Milorganite
10/12/2008	0.50	0.20	0.00	10.3	0.41	Milorganite
10/18/2008	0.50	0.20	0.00	10.3	0.41	Milorganite
11/1/2008	1.00	0.41	0.00	20.6	0.82	Milorganite
11/14/2008	1.05	0.10	0.67	0.0		Winterizer
Total per K ft:	18.20	4.62	3.90	307.6	6.09	2153 active organic total

Let the Games Begin!

There's an initial photo update on my Flickr Page. The color isn't fantastic, but it's starting to come along.

I've added 40 lbs of dog food per thousand square feet (Dad's dog food is pretty cheap--much cheaper than alfalfa is at this point), about a third of which went down today. I'll look to get that done before Wednesday when we get some rain.

Now I just have to keep the dogs off it!