soil Soil maturity time

MNXR250R

MNXR250R

Just a quick question.  I bought some Kellogg Farms raised bed mix this spring for the small outdoor garden. It has all of the ingredients that good garden mix should have, but I think it was totally lifeless out of the bag.
 
The garden needed a few doses of chemical ferts over the summer to keep the peppers, tomatoes and cucumber healthy. The plants didn't produce as I had expected. We did have a hot spring and then lower than average mid-summer and now into the fall.
 
I've been composting some of the leaves I collected last fall and the grass clippings collected from the yard this year. The compost is almost ready for the garden. I will add the compost to the garden in the next couple of weeks.
 
The question is, how long can it take for a garden mix to reach "maturity", so you don't have to add ferts to the soil (able to support peppers on its own) ??
 
Thanks, Jeff
 
MNXR250R said:
Just a quick question.  I bought some Kellogg Farms raised bed mix this spring for the small outdoor garden. It has all of the ingredients that good garden mix should have, but I think it was totally lifeless out of the bag.
 
The garden needed a few doses of chemical ferts over the summer to keep the peppers, tomatoes and cucumber healthy. The plants didn't produce as I had expected. We did have a hot spring and then lower than average mid-summer and now into the fall.
 
I've been composting some of the leaves I collected last fall and the grass clippings collected from the yard this year. The compost is almost ready for the garden. I will add the compost to the garden in the next couple of weeks.
 
The question is, how long can it take for a garden mix to reach "maturity", so you don't have to add ferts to the soil (able to support peppers on its own) ??
 
Thanks, Jeff
Click to expand...
The short answer is that soil building is a dynamic process that never really stops as long as we eat the plants grown in that soil but
don't return the nutrients in our bodily wastes. We flush them down
the sewer pipes instead.
If you want to study it in detail, check out a book called "The Intelligent Gardener - Growing Nutrient Dense Food" by Steve Solomon with Erica Reinheimer. I found a copy at our local library.

Sent from my LGL44VL using Tapatalk
 
Thanks stickman.  So then if I poop in the garden it should reach an equilibrium :party:   Kidding of course.
 
 I have seen soil amendments that have active microbiology. Maybe I should consider adding some of that to the next garden expansion.  I don't have a lot of room to be able compost enough for the entire system.  That's next years project :)
 
Jeff
 
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