Please help me balance my garden!

Due to a huge amount of decomposing vegetable matter my garden grows giant green leafy plants that produce very little fruit. Sooo... too much nitrogen, not enough potassium... am I right or wrong? If right, what can I add to my garden to improve its potassium levels? It's a big garden so tell me something cheap!

I would add saw dust or wood chips to the soil. When they decompose, they use up huge amounts of nitrogen. My literature also recommended planting nitrogen pigs like corn. it takes a bit of time to repair a high nitrogen problem, but neither of these will cost too much in your garden patch. lastly, and this is more personal, and less scientific, but worm casts are good at helping to improve soil balance and help improve soil in general.

Hmmm, corn. No wonder it is so big. It has doubled in size since you saw it and the squash plants are huge. Good idea.

How about wood ash? Does anyone add that to their garden?

I am not sure if wood ash will help with your nitrogen problem, but it does help with all kinds of crawley pests like cabbage root maggots. From what I read, reducing the nitrogen will be a slow process. You need to use it up. Mulching your garden, like you were doing helps. Try mulching with the wood shavings. I was looking for an easy answer like adding potash or something similar, but it was all about actually reducing the nitrogen, not adding other nutrients....back to the books, maybe I can come up with a better answer. I do love the challenge though.

Schipperkesue wrote:Hmmm, corn. No wonder it is so big. It has doubled in size since you saw it and the squash plants are huge. Good idea.

How about wood ash? Does anyone add that to their garden?

Sue, when I read this I was wondering about wood ash too. I don't know the answer but that is the first thing that popped into my head. I know my chickens love the stuff!!

I am also not kidding about the worm casts. It is the ultimate soil amendment. The benefits far exceed that of NPK. It is about increasing the biodiversity of your soil and allowing the roots easier access to the appropriate nutrients. I don't sell worms,or casts, but could talk for days about the benefits.

The darn garden is also filled with clover and it has those nitrogen fixing roots, doesn't it? I would happily round the whole thing up but that would just exacerbate my nitrogen problem, wouldn't it?

I think I must have built this garden on the biggest manure heap on the property!

I don't think the clover is your problem. It doesn't fix that much nitrogen. I don't think you need Round-up. Till it good in the fall and twice in the spring, if you can. Add some wood ash and a couple bales of clean shavings and try again. If you want to try killing the clover, I don't think Round-up would exacerbate the problem though.

My go-to book officially says there is no antidote for too much nitrogen. The only cure is water and time. Water will eventually leach it away. You could try building it up a bit with some soil from the field. That may help dilute your soil a bit.

Wish I could be more help. Heck, if I were closer I would help haul dirt in.


Good luck!

A lot of factors might make a difference. Our soil is probably nitrogen rich as well. Our corn grew to large plants and we had our best corn crop so far. The tomatoes growing next to the corn grew very large plants, but we had our first frost today and took in what was there. We had half the crop that we had last year and most plants had lots of flowers. Another couple months and they probably would have provided a huge crop. The best tomatoes we had were ones that grew voluntarily in the middle of the old chicken run. The plants were much smaller but had lots of tomatoes. We had a cool, wet season until August and then a hot, dry month.

I know a silly question Sue.....but have you tested the soil with a test kit

chickencrazygirl wrote:I know a silly question Sue.....but have you tested the soil with a test kit

Not a silly question and no, dont have a kit. Who would have one this time of year?

Schipperkesue wrote:

chickencrazygirl wrote:I know a silly question Sue.....but have you tested the soil with a test kit

Not a silly question and no, dont have a kit. Who would have one this time of year?

Canadian tire I would think should still have some as all there garden stuff is still out.
Good luck

You could just till it a couple of times. Maybe once now and twice again next spring about a month apart. I find ammending soil to be more work than it's worth. If it were my garden, I'd probably just stop growing fruiting crops in it for a while and do all my fruiting veggies in pots for a while.