Highly Mineralized Organic Fertilizer

These fertilizer recipes are guidelines and adaptable. They were developed for use in the high rainfall area of the Pacific Northwest which has a tendency to be deficient in minerals and acidic. When blending HMOF all ingredients are measured by volume, using a tin can or other scoop. Many of these materials are quite dusty. I recommend applying them with a sports field ‘line marker’ to get the most material on the ground while creating the least windblown dust. Do not measure by weight. Into a large plastic bucket pour the following:

VEGETABLE MIX
• 4 measures of linseed/alfalfa meal;
• ½ measure of ordinary agricultural lime;
• ½ measure of dolomite lime;
• 1 measure of fish bone meal
• ½ measure crustacean or crab meal
• ½ measure green sand
• ¼ measure azomite
• ¼ measure glacial dust
• ½ to 1 measure of Thorvin kelp meal.
• 1/8 measure SEA-90
• 1/8 measure Epson salt
Mix the ingredients thoroughly.

GREENS MIX
• 2-3 measures of fish meal;
• ½ measure of ordinary agricultural lime;
• ½ measure of dolomite lime;
• 1 measure of fish bone meal
• ½ measure crustacean or crab meal
• ½ measure green sand
• ¼ measure azomite
• ¼ measure glacial dust
• ½ to 1 measure of Thorvin kelp meal.
• 1/8 measure SEA-90
• 1/8 measure Epson salt
Mix the ingredients thoroughly.

Two methods for applying.

Method 1--Uniformly spread 4–6 quarts of HMOF per 100 sq. feet of intensely planted growing bed or, if growing in long rows, 4–6 quarts of HMOF per 50 row feet, covering a band up to 18” wide depending on the crop and centered on where the water will be applied if using drip irrigation, not necessarily in the center of the planting. Dig in the fertilizer in advance of planting to let soil bacteria and fungi start working on the material before plants need the nutrition. Once the seedlings are up, if your crop does not grow fast enough to suit you, side-dress it with up to another 4–6 quarts per 100 sq. ft. of bed or 50 feet of row. If the extra HMOF gives you a good result you shouldn’t need any more through the entire crop cycle. If the extra HMOF had no result, you did not need it, and do not add any more because you might over fertilize and harm your plants.

Method 2—Rough up the surface of the soil or use something like a wheel hoe to make a shallow trench. Next, use a sports line marker and band the fertilizer 2-4” wide in the trench. You can plant in the trench and cover as you go or plant next to the trench and cover as you go. It does help to get the fertilizer activated in advance as it won’t become available to the plants until it starts getting worked on by the soil food web.

This fertilizer may be too rich in magnesium for some soils. As a first year application you should be all right with this formula but like any good thing it is easy to overdo it. Subsequent applications should be accompanied by a soil test to make sure you aren’t adding more than you need to accomplish the goal of growing highly nutritious vegetables and fruits. The primary use of this type of fertilizer is to feed the soil and encourage it to become highly biological. The soil food web then feeds your plants and the plants supply energy back to the soil food web. Consider this when applying any kind of fertilizer and amendments to soils as less is often more.

ABOUT SOIL TESTS
Soil tests may indicate that you need 5 tons of lime per acre to get to the desired range of pH. Disregard that. Conventional wisdom is that you cannot possibly grow plants, let alone highly nutritious food, without soil being very close to a neutral pH. This was proven to be false by soil scientists working for the USDA extension office in the 1930s when they fed plants a highly acidic form of calcium that brought the soil down to pH 3.5. As long as minerals like calcium are present in solution they are available to the plants. If in doubt some minerals can be applied as a foliar spray.

• If soil tests show that you have a very low pH and that you are low in calcium and magnesium then use the dolomite. Magnesium raises pH six times faster than calcium.

• Dolomite, which contains calcium and magnesium, and lime may be eliminated if soils are near a desirable pH because the bone and crab meal will provide enough calcium to be adequate for feeding.

• Epsom salt, which consists of magnesium and sulfur, has a neutral pH. Consider eliminating this if your soil has adequate magnesium. Sulfur is important to watch though, and even small amounts can have a great effect on yields if it isn’t available in meaningful quantities. Some essential amino acids are sulfur based so don’t neglect sulfur.

• If you have pelletized types of agricultural lime and dolomite available such as “Calpril” or “Dolopril” you might want to consider using that as your “lime” source as it is slower releasing and may provide more consistent nutrition in wet conditions and they are less likely to burn plants.

Chicken etc. Feed

I agreed to be a drop point for Scratch and Peck Feed out of Bellingham, WA. We are also carrying their garden hoop package and parts if you want to extend the season with a cloche. Here is a copy of an ad that runs in Craigslist periodically.

Growing your own food? Here is some help. Non corn/soy or soy free Layer feed and goat feed now available as well as 3 grain scratch. Broiler, grower, and pig available by request. 

Soy-Free and non-GMO feed grown and milled in Washington. Also available are feeds for turkeys, goats and pigs. Grain is all organic grain direct from the farmers right here in Washington which means a smaller carbon footprint while supporting local agriculture. I use this high quality feed because I believe that "you are what your animals eat!" My Hens love this feed and I am thrilled to be able to offer it to more Portland urban chickens! Features Washington grown organic whole grains specially blended to meet the dietary needs of poultry and livestock.

Naturally Free - Whole Grain Layer Feed   50 pound bag - $25.99 
Layer whole-grain mash is a complete chicken feed and contains 16.4% protein. It can also be used to supplement a pasture-based diet. Use this feed when chickens reach 17-20 weeks of age or begin laying eggs. 

Soy Free - Whole Grain Layer Feed   50 pound bag $25.99 
Layer whole-grain mash is a complete chicken feed with 16.4% protein. Can also be used to supplement a pasture-based diet.
All grains come from certified organic growers.

Goat Whole-Grain Mash   50 pound bag  $24.99
Goat whole-grain mash has 16.5% protein. Use this goat feed to provide your goats a healthy dose of daily nutrition.

Whole grain scratch   50 pound bag $18.99
This is a sproutable mix of triticale, wheat, and barley from organic growers. 

Whole-grain wheat-sproutable. 50 pound bag $16.99
Whole-grain triticale-sproutable. 50 pound bag $16.99

Pick-up only in Camas.
Easy pick up location near Hwy 14.
Respond above or call Tom at 360-216-1536
Quantity discounts available

GM Alfalfa-A National Disgrace

Mr. Obama,
A good, clean, and nutritious food supply is one of the most basic of all human rights. Agricultural commodity companies have turned into chemical companies so that you can’t walk into a supermarket and find real food anymore. Almost the only thing you can find is packaged goods made by chemists with a list of ingredients. Chemical companies, with government approval, now want to take the right and our right to choose natural foods away from us. I urge you to use any means at your disposal to disapprove genetically modified alfalfa to be sold or produced. If it is allowed to be sold then all animal products fed genetically modified organisms should be clearly labeled as such. I should have the right to decide whether I want to eat foods that are natural or not and not have my health be subject to decisions made by corporations that are acting to benefit short term profits for shareholders.

Every promise made by chemical companies that want to continue to exert their influence over our food supply has been broken. Monsanto promised their GM seeds would lower the need for pesticides. Instead pesticide use went up and weeds became more resistant to pesticides requiring even more chemical use. Now they want to introduce GM alfalfa making more promises that no one is sure that they can keep.There is no need to introduce so many genetically modified organisms into our environment. The rapid pace of introduction of so many genetically modified organisms that are different from the food stocks that we co-evolved with may have consequences that we don't yet understand. Our food supply is already almost completely controlled by chemical companies, so much so that even foods that meet the minimal technical designation of "organic" are little more than a chemists recipe far removed from the natural food that some of the ingredients started out as.

There should be a ten year moratorium on introducing any new genetically modified food stocks unless a compelling case can be made to show that not bringing a GM crop forward would hurt a national interest. There is a lot of research yet to be done before we understand how we interact with our food supply and what kind of effects that new rearrangements of chemicals in our environment might affect our health. Government policy has already played a leading role in making the people in this country sick and fat which has led to an epidemic of diabetes and heart disease. Don't keep on committing to the same types of mistakes by letting chemical companies continue to dictate to consumers what kinds of products are in our food supply.

Sincerely,
Thomas Gibson
Camas Permaculture

Farmers and consumers: Contact President Obama and let him know that the USDA’s approval of GE Alfalfa is dangerous and unacceptable.


Tell President Obama that you don’t want organic and conventional agriculture contaminated by GE Alfalfa, and that you have a right to eat meat, dairy, and eggs from livestock who consume non-genetically engineered crops.

President Barack Obama
Phone: (202) 456-1111
Fax: (202) 456-2461
E-Comments: www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

For a fact sheet with additional information on GE Alfalfa, click here.

The Cornucopia Institute P.O. Box 126 Cornucopia, WI 54827 http://www.cornucopia.org/

Arsenic in Our Food

I came across a number of sources simultaneously this weekend that referred to arsenic in chicken manure. I used to use a chicken manure based “organic” fertilizer but I stopped when I found the OMRI report that showed that compared to other pelletized organic fertilizers that it had a very high level of arsenic. Now I think I know why. According to the movie and industry sources, arsenic is fed as part of a sub-therapeutic antibiotic in large poultry operations to help keep chickens healthy and put on more weight in inhumanely crowded and stressed out environments. I think we have to assume that arsenic is a marker that also indicates the presence of antibiotics (and other things? hormones?) since we know many antibiotics don’t break down even in hot composting operations. In the movie below and according to one of the conventional poultry industry’s lead magazines they mention that the “organic” form such as I guess is in Stutzman’s fertilizer is not as dangerous but that “Arsenic in chicken litter can convert to more dangerous forms of arsenic than those originally used in feed.” One example given in the movie is dust from the soil where chicken manure had been applied that had blown into people’s nearby houses by the wind.I stopped using this product over a year ago because arsenic is an element and can’t break down. Even though we may have adapted to exposure to small quantities of arsenic, after all we evolved with it in our environment and even use some forms of it in medicines, when we start building concentrations of it in our soils in order to grow a large number of developed and changing varieties of crops that this represents new territory that science still hasn’t caught up with.

I assume the only reason that these products are categorized as organic is because manure is simply not regulated in the organic standards the way that other ingredients are. Where there is arsenic my assumption is that there other sins as well such as antibiotics and other industrial chemicals that wouldn’t normally be allowed in an organic operation.I would like to see all such manures that we know contain additives that could never be considered organic otherwise except that they passed out of the rear end of an animal be banned. I am curious to hear if there is a reason to disagree with that, especially considering that there are so many other options to fertilize organically. I would like to see distributors voluntarily put a label prominently on the front of the bags that says “Contains ARSENIC” so people can decide for themselves whether they want to start salting their soil with this element. Better yet, until science catches up with us and we can show that products like this are safe and don’t have other antibiotics or other drugs maybe we should just stop using them. I can’t imagine that it would be a big cost difference to make this manure only using manure sourced from farms that aren’t spiking the feed or water with such toxic chemicals which they can only do because the animals will be slaughtered before they are old enough get sick enough from eating such poisons.

Another reason to stop buying these products is because they are derived from and support economically a style of farming that is eating away at the fabric of our country. The only place chemicals like this are used are CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding organizations) also known as feed lot in the case of beef in which tens of thousands to millions of animals are all kept in one place living on mountains of their own manure while everything is brought to them but very little is actually taken away or disposed of properly because doing so is “too expensive”. We shouldn’t support industries like this in any way since not even the food they create, while cheap, should be considered for human or other animal consumption.We don’t need this kind of industrialized agriculture supported by taxpayer through the USDA commodity programs in order to maintain adequate supplies of food for our country or the world. The United States has vast grasslands where millions of bison, deer, elk, and other animals grazed in such vast numbers that it could take days for a herd to pass someone if the were able to stay in one place to watch it. This improved the quality and fertility of the soil, created a more diverse range, and manufactured the most nutritious meat. This actually increased carbon retention in soils instead of burning and releasing it into the air. We don’t need to grow our food in large cesspools where the only feed animals get is food that people could be eating and that doesn’t have the complete nutrition that grasslands have for ruminants and the kind of food that they are most adapted to eating.

When you buy fertilizer like Stutzman’s then it is like saying “I like my meat raised in poop” instead of free range and that you want arsenic and drugs that you don’t need in your food. It brings up another point regarding foods that are labeled organic. It is hard enough to know enough what to ask someone even if you were buying all of your food directly from a farmer. It is impossible to walk into a supermarket when you realize how corrupt the organic standards have become since they were first introduced. There is also a morality story about people that want too much and will accept gifts from strangers in order to get things where when we look into it they have turned want into need. My conclusion is that we usually will be much better off learning to make the best of what we have and managing those resources instead of assuming that it is sustainable to always be relying on external inputs and resources  or that there is no risk by seeking things from far and wide hoping and believe that innovation will make our lives richer or easier. Personally, I doubt if that is the case.

http://www.worldpoultry.net/news/us-activists-push-for-arsenic-ban-8142.html


A River of Waste, The Hazardous Truth About Factory Farms