I've used it for some years in a soil that tests high in the other nutrients and it does a great job. It's 7+% nitrogen and I've dressed the soil before making a furrow for planting and then side-dressed on the soil surface after I've pulled back the mulch when the corn is about knee-high. I think published analyses are usually around 7-2-1. In my area a 40# bag of 10-10-10 costs about $14 and a 50# bag of soybean oil meal costs about $15.

Nitrogen is a gas. The best place to get Nitrogen from is things that are alive -- their cells still have a lot of that gas captured. You can plant legumes and cut them down halfway through flowering when the N is most available. The roots will have the N-fixing bacteria still in the soil, and the plants you cut down you can use for mulch. That's a double dose of N. You can pee on your garden, as long as you're not taking any meds that could be in your pee. You can add kitchen scraps into holes in your garden as you transplant, deeper than would attract critters. You can add blood meal, but that would definetly attract critters. There are lots of things you can do. I'd reccommend pee, pit composting, and planting legumes.

kimmser/peter- Thanks for the interest and info. I recently had a soil test done (my first one) and everything was in the high range EXCEPT Potassium. However, for whatever reason, my soil test results did not include the amount of nitrogen. I notice on the soil report that nitrate nitrogen is listed but there is no info about it in the results column. I was thinking that NITRATE nitrogen would be something that applied to synthetic fertilizers moreso than organic... but I really don't know. So, I don't know how much nitrogen is already there. Do I need to find out? How do I find out (soil test is done by Clemson University). The only other unknowns are sulfer & percentage of organic matter because apparently they require separate tests. The PH is 5.9 with a buffer ph of 7.75 and Clemson does not recommend liming at this level (although it is borderline). This test was taken prior to putting in my garden (first one this plot) and I added black kow, blood meal(5lbs/100sqft), greensand 10 lbs/100sqft)and rock phosphate 10 lbs/100sqft)at levels designed to bring a medium or low reading up to high. So, I'm thinking that because my garden was so BAD this go round that all of these additional ammendments are still there. So, don't really think an additional soil test is necessary but I'm probably going to get one anyone more or less out of curiousity. Kimmser- I did the settling out test and mostly what I have is sand. Very little organic matter and clay. Thus the reason for trying hairy vetch. I'm also guessing that there is little bacterial activity because of the lack of organic matter (thus the reason for thinking most of the "blood meal" is still there. Drains well, smells fine, no earthworms. Yeah, it needs some work, I'm starting to understand why. Peter- Interesting on the addition of rye to suppress the weeds. I take it the hairy vetch is slow to cover, I thought it would do ok on it's own. Based on what I've said above, would you agree that a nitrogen source is probably not necesary. 4 years for a soil test seems reasonable to me. Sure would like to get to where I don't need them at all to understand how my soils doing. Another apparent misconception on my part is that I'm going to be able to plant my spring garden in the plot that I plant the hairy vetch in now (winter cover crop). I was thinking I'd till it in a few weeks before last frost and everything would be better for my spring/summer garden. What I'm hearing you say is I probably need to wait. Trying to come up with a plan that I can rotate out spring/summer & fall/winter cover crops with spring/summer and fall/winter gardens. Attempting to figure how many separate plots I need to take things in and out of rotation so that I can get the organic matter in while also cutting down on disease because I rotate. What's the worse case scenario if I don't include the cereal rye with the vetch? So the cereal rye actually kills weed/vegetable seeds? Certainly didn't know that. I thought it was just weed suppression because it grew fast and got ahead of all the weeds thus shading them out and or choking them or something. Is the weed seed killer nature specific to cereal rye or is it particular of all the ryes? What about mixing in some sort of clover vs the rye? My brains spinning already when it comes to scheduling. Thanks for reminding me about the innoculant. Keep forgetting about it. Sounds like it's pretty important. Is there any info out there about how an innoculant could potentially be bad for your soil? It's not introducing something to it that hasn't been there in the past? Thanks all!

Been a while since it got down to the essentials. I suppose winter bordom is closeing in fast. glib said " bacteria will pull nitrogen from the air, if given time. " Often overlooked even by veteran gardeners but imo a very important consideration. Tox mentioned the result and regularly advocates treating browns as compost apposed to holding them in a bag until N become's available. I do it all the time and am pleased with outcome. In a seprate thread someone was recently talking about buying alfafa for composting,not me. I'm no purest by any measure but half the incentive is diverting material from landfills to become something benificial. I'm not quite there with road kill but havn't ruled it out. While passing dumpsters,it's getting hard to tell composters from the homeless. ' Thank you for reporting this comment. Undo