Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
in the pile or has been added to your soil. If you use biochar,
that will help the minerals stay in the soil as well.
In commercial agriculture, these elements are often an annual
addition. That is because extensive tillage depletes organic
matter in the soil, and composting is not usually done on a
sufficient scale or with a diversity of ingredients. Thus, the
soil doesn't have sufficient ability to hold onto the
micro-nutrients and they are washed out with rain, or shipped
away with the crops.
If, on the other hand, you are managing your soil fertility with
cover crops, crop rotation, using organic soil amendments and
diligent composting plus even adding some biochar,
micro-nutrients will have a greater tendency to stay in your
soil. This means that you should not add micro-nutrients
annually once your garden is established and compost
operations are underway. With the exception of molybdenum
which should only be added once, add the other
micro-nutrients as recommended for the first three years. But
after that, you can do just fine by adding ocean minerals every
other year, and the only individual micro-nutrient you'll need
to add annually is boron.
When adding micro-nutrients, thoroughly mix them with
some other amendment that you will add in larger quantities.
It is essentially impossible to evenly distribute an ounce and a
half of some powder over a 100 square foot area. So these
nutrients should be added to materials such as wood ashes or
bone meal that are used in larger quantities, thoroughly
mixed, and added. That way, and especially for nutrients that
could be toxic such as boron, copper or molybdenum, you
