anyone fertilize garlic with kelp?
 

while it's too late this season i'm asking so next year i'll know.

in "growing great garlic" by ron engeland he mentions fertilizing garlic with maxicrop which is powdered kelp. my notes are not clear if this is a 1 time thing in early spring when the plants are 3" tall or if you use it every 2 weeks. he does say to foliar feed with fish emulsion every 2 weeks from 3" tall to early may then stop the fish emulsion. my notes sound like you use the kelp every 2 weeks also but i'm not clear on that.

the cost of powdered kelp is 3.5 pounds for $17! if you use powdered kelp:
1. one time application or every 2 weeks?
2. how much do you apply?

i use neptune's harvest fish and seaweed emulsion so maybe i'm already covered as it's in the mix?

tom

Garlic (even in CT) should be wrapping up its season, it being a fall planting.

I don't fertilize mine this late. IMO its time to taper off watering too.

I use Ron's timing and GGG's timing and component suggestions. (Multiple applications.) Neptune's Harvest is perfect and approved for organic growing.

On a larger scale the city of Miami Beach Florida has introduced giving away tons of composted(just turned over piles of it)seaweed gathered from the daily raking on the beaches.A friend who lives in Miami beach has been putting it on his yard and swears by it.

i wouldn't fertilize now it's too late for that, i stopped fertilizing a month ago. i am asking for next year. trying to decide whether to buy kelp and poultry waste for the garlic, the kelp is stupid expensive. i haven't used either and have fine results but i'm wondering if these 2 would improve things.

tom

tom

when i use kelp, i combine it with fish emulsion or powder, and i would use it every 2 weeks. check out peaceful valley for kelp, and dried fish powder. i got some a couple years ago, and i think the price was reasonable.
i didn't use kelp or fish emulsion this year. i put several inches of composted horse manure from my neighbor on the garlic bed last year, and planted through that. my garlic doesn't look like it needs anything else. harvest is still over a month away for me. no scapes yet. the hundreds of bulbils i planted last year are looking good i expect some of them will give me small divided bulbs.

i know everyone says horse manure has lots of weed seeds. i haven't had many so far. this is on a field that was just plowed last year. could be because the manure was pretty well composted, hardly any nuggets, and i spread it on the ground thick without tilling it in.



keith

thanks.
since i have kelp in the nh maybe i really don't need to use kelp powder. i may buy a bag and see if it makes a difference.

tom

If I use liquid kelp, should I put it between the bulbs or can I put some on top of them?

Kelp contains the hormone "gibberellic acid" which causes the plants to do more of what ever mode they are currently in -- provided nutrients are also present in the soil. A kelp product is never a source of nutrients unless it has been fortified. I know that many kelp products claim to have dozens of trace minerals. Notice though in the "Guarateed Analysis" on the label, these are not listed. That is because they are in a form that is not available to plants -- nor can they be made available by organisms in the soil.

I used raw kelp to mulch the garlic I planted last fall. By spring it will be starting to decompose and drizzle some nutrients down into the soil... I didn't have a (seed free) straw to use instead. Kelp breaks down much quicker and of course, seeds no weeds.

I used raw kelp to mulch the bulbils I planted the previous year. They grew to a good size (I think!) although they are a Porcelain variety (Music) so I was pretty pleased with that.

Hermitian, I find the idea that trace elements from kelp are not available to plants once they are incorporated in a living soil ecosystem, pretty hard to believe. Do you have a source to cite for that?

I'll admit I'm used to using the raw seaweed in bulk, not some expensive powder in tiny quantities, although I make soluble powder for specific uses - rooting cuttings, transplant stress and so on. Kelp rots as well and faster than any land vegetation and makes compost of very high quality. The sweetest carrots on earth are grown in this region by farmers who use kelp as a bulk fertilizer. I also use coarse chopped kelp in my tomato container soil to help with moisture retention (as suggested on a UN-FAO website) and found it very good for the first part - but by late summer every bit of it has been turned into soil and consumed. Need to use more to offset the conversion rate.

If trace elements from the kelp are not, and cannot be bioavailable to plants as you suggest, what is happening to my soil. I should think it would be harmful in the long term if this was the case.

I use a little bit of blood meal to give them a boost in late February. I think it works better than kelp.

I put a gallon of water and 2tbls of liquid kelp in a bucket with the prepared garlic to soak an hour or so then plant ... I've used kelp during the growing season, but can't tell it does anything. Mine responds much more to composted horsemanure, cottonseed meal or alfalfa pellets(horse feed)worked into the bed pre planting, bloodmeal as a side dressing and an occasional soaking with liquid fish every month through March then nothing till harvest in May here. The heads tend to be more uniform and of excellent size if I do this regime consistently than if I just plant in prepared beds and and leave be.

Out of curiosity I checked this Neptune's garden stuff.
5 gallons of 2-3-1 costs 143 $?
What am I missing here? Isn't that expensive? Why are liquid ferts so outrageously much?

I mean, OMRi approved chicken manure 4-4-4 costs 15 euro 25 kilos (55 lbs).

It runs about half that here locally and I buy it gallon at a time and that lasts me about 2 years on a 2000sq ft garden.
[URL="http://www.lowes.com/pd_122473-1321-09301200_4294612880__?productId=3082865&Ns=p_product_qty_sales_dollar|1&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNs%3Dp_product_qty_sales_dollar%7C1&facetInfo="]http://www.lowes.com/pd_122473-1321-09301200_4294612880__?productId=3082865&Ns=p_product_qty_sales_dollar|1&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNs%3Dp_product_qty_sales_dollar%7C1&facetInfo=[/URL] If you have a good place to make it, There is a recipe that works and is very cost effective. BUT, IT STINKS! It takes about a gallon of fish (preferrably) ground, skin, guts, bones and all.
The original recipe calls for cans of fish, like sardines or mackrel, but I'm a fisherman and have an old chicken coop at the end of my garden that is Very far from the house and barn. This is not a recipe for the city... LOL!

[QUOTE=zipcode;389856]Out of curiosity I checked this Neptune's garden stuff.
5 gallons of 2-3-1 costs 143 $?
What am I missing here? Isn't that expensive? Why are liquid ferts so outrageously much?

I mean, OMRi approved chicken manure 4-4-4 costs 15 euro 25 kilos (55 lbs).[/QUOTE]

i buy a gallon locally for about $32-$38, i forget the exact cost. a gallon of concentrate lasts me 1.5 to 2 years in a 1200 sq ft garden. i suppose drying chicken manure is less intensive than making concentrated fish emulsion tho both would stink to high heaven! dried chicken isn't too strong but NH, just try to keep it off your hands! you quote euros, i assumed you were in the states, not sure what things cost or if available in europe.

tom