I like the linked site.

There are perhaps some who believe that supplying enough organic matter will bring the soil to a healthy condition in every aspect. There are some who believe eating a well balanced diet with exercise will bring the body into a healthy condition.

The problem as I see it is that there are so many variables that one size does not fit all. Many young people may be able to wring fairly good health out of a good diet because they may be producing sufficient stomach acid to break down mineral and enough hormones, enzymes, and glandular secretions to more fully utilize their food....older people...not so much.

Some soils are loaded with trace elements and others that have higher rainfall and have been farmed for generations may be lacking key minerals that may be deeply buried or non existent.

For myself, I like to supplement my soils and my body.

Thanks for the reply, Wayne_5. What do YOU use to supplement your soil? I'm also interested in supplements for our bodies, but don't know where to start. I used to read about them and use them, but drifted away. Now we're retiring, and going to live at a lake. It's got us very interested in getting more exercise and getting healthy, especially since Bob has cancer but plans on beating it and surviving. That's why I'm diving back into organic gardening. I hope to grow a lot of what we eat. We may have to cut some trees to get the sun. It's exciting to be starting a whole new stage of life! I'd like to leave the planet better off too. (I've been doing that most of my life.) Ah, age. How it changes things! :)

For my soil I supplement with leaf mulch, leaf compost, aged horse manure, Azomite minerals, Plant Tone fertilizer and other fertilizers. I improved the texture of much of my gardens with 4 inches of local peat moss and 3 1/2 inches of sand. I have a natural clayey loam.

I would go with Jon Barron for my body supplements if price
was no issue. He has some very good health information topics on his site linked below. I do use 3 of his formulations, but also because of cost I use some other providers like Swanson Health Products, Dr. Sinatra, and Dr. David Williams.

Here is a link that might be useful: Jon Barron health site

The above is an advertisement for things to buy that you don't need to have a healthy soil. All you need to do is make your own compost and add browns to the greens, mix this into your soil. You don't need any of those other things. Why are those people not kicked off the forum who post stuff they are selling?

tropical thought, you need to "thought" a bit more. I and the first poster are not selling anything that I know of except for some helpful information to discriminating souls.

tropical_thought,
Codswallop!
If my soil is minerally deficient, it's very unlikely compost will sort it out. It's great stuff, but it's not the cure for all ills, especially since most of mine is made from biomass from my own garden which would perpetuate the deficiencies.
And wayne_5 is not, to the best of my knowledge, a spammer!

"Codswallop"

Had to look that one up...will use it liberally at work...thx.

:-)

Lloyd

My current word of the month...flagitious.

so there's a secret which i can be made privy to and it will only cost me....

yeah i'll pass. but my goals are not the goals of most here.

Flagitious Codswallop sounds like a character from a Dickens novel.

Tropical Thought, I have nothing to sell! I came across that site and wanted to ask what you guys thought. They didn't post it, I did.

I'm sorry you thought otherwise. I truly hope I do not get kicked off here. I love Gardenweb and have been coming here off and on, due to time when I was too unwell to garden, for about ?8-9 years?

I'm an organic gardener, I love learning, I love reading about gardening, I love raising worms, I love organic gardening...and now I need to learn new things because we moved.

I simply wanted to know what people here thought of the site. Don't blame them. They may be scoundrels, but I don't know that. I wrote here to find out. Kinda makes one afraid to post, if it means getting blasted.

I'm terribly sorry for posting it. I don't have anything to do with them. I don't know what to do now.

Please don't kick me off Gardenweb. It's my favorite place, even when I was sick and couldn't garden. I would read topics here and dream of when I'd be better. Don't kick me off. Please.

Who are the people who can kick others off the site? Please let me know. And who can I ask not to kick me off the site?

dowbright,
I now realise the (spurious I think) accusations of spammyness were about you, not wayne_5. Note to self, read posts properly.
I wouldn't worry, no-one's being kicked off and I don't think you did anything wrong.
Guns were jumped, in my opinion.

gargwarb, very Dickensian indeed!

I think the link is a advertisement with enough truth to get you to buy their snake oil.
I agree we sometimes need to add micro nutrients or rock dust. For some one to say compost is all you need is like saying applying compost one time in a life time is enough.
I have not tried rock dust yet, but I have tried Hi-Yield.
Animal manure compost will fill in many nutrient, but unless you feed the animals yourself, how will you know what & how much.

feijoas: As the accused several hours later, I'm over my hurt feelings! I think my original post makes it clear that I'm not a booster, or I wouldn't have mentioned that they could be fanatics. ;)

Malapropisms abound in Dickens (my favorite one...remember her?) So pickwickian, pecksniff and turveydrop rule. But God bless us every one, regardless. As long as we continue to decrease the surplus population.

Oh, wait. That's what they're working at now in Congress. ;)

Gargwarb to me feels more Middle Earth to me. But there I go, promoting my own novels. Won't you please BUY them????

SEND MONEY.

Very probably if all disease was the result of nutritional deficiencies eating right might be the solution. However, we know today that some diseases are due to genetic defects. That some people are genetically programed to have heart disease does not mean that they should not eat a good, balanced diet which can help keep that disease from manifesting itself earlier, they will still eventually succumb to the disease. But eating a good, balanced diet and getting sufficient exercise can prolong a good life.
That we should work at making our soil into a good, healthy soil should go without saying, and a start on that road is with a good, reliable soil test as well as looking closely at the soil we have to see what it is and what we need to do to make it into that good, healthy soil.
Would spending $29.95 plus shipping and handling be worthwhile? Maybe, although that web site makes me think the books I have, and have studied, by Howard, Albrecht, and numerous others have already told me the same thing.

Genetic predisposition to disease has precisely nothing to do with the OP.

Yes, I believe Albrecht had it right. I don't think anyone has come close to amassing the first-hand knowledge and experience of Albrecht, and I include Sir Howard and King and Rodale in that. Nor did they have his scientific grounding. Those of you who are getting perfect insect-resistant crops with OM additions only obviously don't need to change your methods, especially if you know for sure the nutrient value of the resulting produce.

I rather doubt anyone here can make that claim.

If you think you really need to have minerals in your soil above and beyond composting, I use osmocote plus. I have great results in my soil, but it not because of the osmocote plus, it is from composting.

Osmocote plus provides minerals that you may be lacking, composting provides soil nutrition.

I am not just saying I have great soil and great results, I have post photos of all of on flickr. You can find it on my member profile.

I do use osmocote plus but not very much of it. I use much less then they say to use. Maybe only 1/16 percent, just a few of the tiny balls, not big handfuls. One bottle for lasts for at least five years. Therefore it is economical, but I think I could get by without using it all at.

For years I did not use it. I have been gardening for over 20 years on the same land and compost is the reason for my success not some wacky mineral soil nutrition scheme.

I only found about about this product less then a year ago, when I was looking for circus food.

I don't want to over do the minerals in the soil. If you compost the plants can take up the minerals you have already into them. It is no good to just add minerals if your soil is not amended because the plant will not be able to use the minerals. The minerals will stay bound in the soil. So, you will not need massive amounts of anything like minerals. I believe that mega doses of anything (even vitamins for people) are counter productive.

Here is a link that might be useful: osmocote plus

One hopes that OP can parse between obvious illogic and informed opinion.

The obvious illogic dispensed in this thread and virtually every other on this subject that comes up on this and other forums: that a missing or severely deficient element can be obtained from compost that is made from plant matter grown on soil that has the same condition.

Here is an example: most regions with high precipitation have soils that have extremely deficient levels of B or it is absent altogether. Super healthy crops that produce nutrient dense harvests will never happen in such soils unamended. No amount of compost made from plants grown in soils with the same B deficiency (an overwhelmingly likely reality) will correct that problem. While the soil heavily amended with compost will produce lush-looking plants that may bear heavily, they will also suffer varying problems with insect predation and the food value of the produce will not be optimum.

In the case of the above example, applying some borax in careful doses is not a "whacky soil nutrition scheme" any more than applying powdered limestone to highly acid low-calcium soils is a whacky scheme. Borax sits on every store shelf for a variety of purposes, rather like soap or salt, or shovels. It isn't there because it is a scam product to fleece gullible gardeners.

It is well to apply reason and logic to food production as much as any other activity.

kimmsr, I agree. I think $30.00 is cheap to get my garden soil balanced.
My problem is will the STUFF THEY ship(whom ever THEY are) work at all. It could be white washed sand, with no real value at all.
Any one can cut & paste good information(it happen on this site all the time), but can they deliver THE RIGHT STUFF.

I never even thought about the fact that it might be fake! There isn't much info on the site, though. I guess I'll forget that then. Too bad. I like growing soil almost as much as growing food. Ah well.

dowbright, I say again that I like the link you posted. I believe the book and products on the site are very good. Whether they are economical to a given person in their gardening situation needs to be judged by each individual.

I tend to be preventive. We took Prevention Magazine back in the late 60s I believe and for a while more...in J. I. Rodale's day. I suppose that if I were 108 years old, I would have my 15 minutes of fame and could tout my secrets of long life...LOL

Here we are in the twenty first century and we still are channeling the gnostics.

come here my friend and listen close for i have the secret, given to me by the wise guru who was years ahead of his time. he sought wisdom and counseled holistic practices in an era of darkness when conventional science was wholly controlled by malevolent powers. come closer and i will reveal these secrets to you. only i have been trusted with the key to this secret knowledge and i am prepared to share this with you.

the secret is this..

there isn't one when it comes to growing plants. It takes hard work, sweat, perhaps a few swear words, more hard work, and a can do attitude. and if you know nothing you can have success and if you've been doing this for fifty years you could absolutely fail, perhaps through no fault of your own.

now...if i harken unto the wise guru and channel his spirit...and perhaps i get kellog and confuse him with tisdale or albrecht or fiacre...but i'm not trying to sell this to people who know the differnce between so i should be safe...and if not i just ask what chemical company tjey work for because the only people more evil than chemical companies are lobbyists or republican governors from alaska and move on to the next victim--i mean, exceptional. educated and wise person who has the obvious good sense to perceive the value of what i have to offer...

dowbright - Don't be put off by the naysayers. It's a legitimate site with a lot of good information and reasonably priced stuff for sale (God forbid). A few years ago I plunked down my $30 for his e-book, "The Ideal Soil." It is an excellent distillation of the "hows" and "whys" of creating a balanced soil. It compares favorably with some of the better books I've read on the subjects of agronomy and soil fertility. My only gripe is that he seems to over-hype his message. There's no "secret" here - just good, solid information that's well-presented, easy to understand, and well worth the modest investment for those interested in optimizing their soil.

Hmm, if I eat a lot of imported food and pee in my compost, will my garden get enough boron to grow vegetables that will prevent disease?

Inquiring minds want to know.

That depends, toxcrusadr. Are ingesting enough Boron to have enough excess? Then again if you do have excess that might throw your body chemistry off enough to create health problems for you.

I was being funny but I forgot the smiley face.

would you eat large amounts of powdered limestone so as to get lots of extra Ca into your feces and thusly into the soil after adding the compost thereof? No, anyone would understand that is idiocy, and not a reason to NOT add powdered limestone to soil with low ph and/or low Ca.

I take it you're not a fan of Quarry Cereal then. :-]

Here is a link that might be useful: Quarry Cereal

Funny! I never saw that one......at this point, it's extra delicious to see the 70's riffing on the 50's, now that we have shows making fun of the 70's......

I have eaten very small amounts of essayed rock dust...take that.......... and chew it!!

They say we all passively ingest several hundred milligrams of soil every day of the year. Meh, it's good for you, extra minerals. At least mom always said so. She was not so thrilled when my sister stuffed her mouth full of wood mulch, though. :-o

I have cut, and breathed in a lot of dust from paving stones and blocks.
Red one give you pretty red boogers.

Does that do any good and is the dust good for the soil.
I always take a hose and wash it into the soil.

Right, we breathe dust and eat it on food. Apropos of nothing. There are all sorts of minerals and substances in our bodies and effluent. Apropos of nothing relevant to this OP.

Does Agricola's site have merit? Absolutely. Is the peddled product a good value? I don't know, but I suspect there are much cheaper ways to get the minerals into the soil and at work.

I have been hauling tons of granite dust lately, I get it for $45 per ton at the local yard. The proportion of fines isn't near as high as I would like, but still there is a lot in a ton. Within a couple of growing seasons I think I can make a determination on whether it is worth the buying and hauling.

Oh man -- Quarry Cereal. I couldn't even watch the video. It makes my teeth hurt just remembering that SNL skit!
Personally, I like the high protein alternative -- Meatios breakfast cereal.

For me, the stuff sold on that site would be way too expensive (a lot of bags of it for a big garden!) But Fedco Seed company is always reasonable, and I know I've seen Azomite, Kelp and Humectates in their catalog -- these were some of the mineral rich ingredients in the mix the site was selling.

The authors of Teaming With Microbes scared me off of using anything non-organic in my veg soil, so personally I wouldn't choose the Osmocote Plus because it contains the dreaded non-microbe-friendly form of Nitrogen. I know, I know -- doesn't hurt anything when used sparingly. But I need all the microbes I can get.

I just read an article regarding mycorrhizal fungi. The research done shows that the fungi does better when commercial fertilizers are used. Osmocote was the best.
I think people need to rethink the use of commercial fertilizers and organics a bit. I have found that they can benefit each other if used properly.

When you say "commercial" fertilizer, do you mean synthesized salt fertilizers? For example, synthesized sul-po-mag instead of mined langbeinite? Salts of nitrogen deriving from the haber process instead of dried chicken manure? Because that latter is indeed quite commercial in the organic farm world.

Salts occur naturally in various non-synthesized fertilizers, and continual use of such concentrated fertilizers without any other inputs and high cropping rates runs soil down similarly to the continual use of chem fert without other inputs. I see this first hand around here, where some very nice USDA category prime soils have been run down to a condition where crusting and hardening is a big problem, weeds dominate, and ever more dried chicken manure is required.

novascapes, do you have a link to that article? I'm very used to thinking of artificial fertilisers as always harmful to soil life and I'd be interested to read evidence otherwise!

I think the research is mixed on the benefits/detriments of synthetic ferts with regard to mycos. I recently read that "nitrates" are bad and, in another article, that Calcium nitrate was "good." BTW, Albrecht was a proponent of both ammonium sulfate and potassium sulfate.

I think it is a question of proportion of introduced salts, whatever form, vs the proportion of OM and humus in the soil. The N salts are especially dangerous. ironically, they are the ones least needed in well-tuned system.

yes, please link the article. I, too, am used to thinking of synthetic fertilizers as harmful to soil life -- very interesting that research has shown different results. Is it then the bacterial soil life that is the most affected by the N salts? Or the beneficial nematodes (save the nematodes!)

Elisa,

My comment was related just to mycorrhizae. Notwithstanding the studies which show a positive response to some synthetics, I still think a cautious approach is warranted. There's an excellent article in this month's Acres USA which discusses the nitrogen cycle and how the use of synthetic fertilizers will encourage specific soil biota at the expense of others while organic fertility favors a different and more diverse group. This is the reason that soils become "hooked" on synthetics and demand an ever-increasing fix just to maintain the status quo.

I think there is room and needs for both in the real world. Some of us don't use synthetics at all. But if there's anyone here in the composting forum who doesn't see the incredible benefits of organic matter and believes only salts, raise your hand.

Bueller?

:-]

SNL has never been as good as the first years....

Here's an apparently obscure comparison, but only insubject matter.

the gnostic gospels of the first century and most the gardening books i see for sale today.

and perhaps i was unclear earlier. my objection is to the implication that you somehow have a secret that has been acquired.

the invocation of (whoever) is just a sales tool. and it's been used for at least two thousand years.

Soils are by far the most complex component of growing plants. they are by far the least understood. too often we seem to focus on a dichotomous approach, that is to say, only organic or only modern synthetic agronomic inputs, when the truth is both have value, and depending on the specific problem you have, a combo approach may be best.

think we could.feed ourselves without modern fertilizers? think you can't screw up your soil by only using organic methods?