Thank you, Cher, for putting Moira and Tony's garden up on your
website, and for giving us Moira's potting soil recipe.
I am envious of all those healthy NZ vegetables. My food crops are
being rapidly demolished by slugs and snails this summer. And the
weather has been so wet and dull that there is no heat in the soil -
and no growth on tender things like corn and pumpkin.
A couple of questions for Moira:
An alien symbol has appeared in my machine's translation of the
recipe, but I suspect it is a "half". Can you confirm that the amount
of mixed mineral powder is indeed a "half"? The mystery symbol also
appears later on in your "special mixes" addendum.
Also, I am not sure that we have mineral powder in Ireland. Have you
any ideas about a substitute? Perhaps a combination of
blood-fish-and-bone (N and P), lime (Ca) and an extra dollop of
seaweed meal - which I presume is the same as kelp powder (for the K
- as well as some more N). Any thoughts you have on this, Moira,
would be welcomed here.
Thank you,
Jane Powers
Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, Ireland (grey, wet, about 55 - 60 degrees... sigh...)
Jane Powers wrote:
Hi Jane
Half it is, wonder why it came out funny.
The combination you suggests sounds as if it would wrk OK, though much
higher in N than my lot. The mineral powder mostly supplies just P, K
and Ca, but I'm sure a bit of extra nitrogen would just brighten the
plants' existence.
And yes, kelp powder is also seaweed meal. We use the latter name here
actually, but most of the American members seem to call it kelp.
Hope it works as well for you as it does for me.
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan,
Wainuiomata, North Island, NZ, "two and a bit" islands surrounded
by water in all directions - 5000 miles to Chile to the east,
Australia 1500 miles NW, South Africa 6000 miles to the west.
Thanks Moira for your thoughts on the potting soil recipe.
Yes, my proposed adaptation does contain more N than yours, but I
don't know a formula with available ingredients that will bring the N
down. We'll see what happens, and I'll keep you posted.
Jane Powers
