No problem. My pellets are about 3/16" diameter by about 3/4" length. This is the first time that I have purchased them. They are reputed to make the soil organisms thrive and are to contain hormones conducive to plant growth. Last year I attended a VABF conference highlighted by Elaine Ingham and she mentioned this as one of the ingredients in making super compost to recharge the soil or from which to brew compost tea. I heard some people say that they soak the pellets along with some molasses for several days and then apply it. Dr. Ingham also mentioned the benefits of adding some fish material to the brew. They said that this could be fish emulsion or she recommended getting fish heads and guts from a fisherman or fishmonger, blended with water, to add to the brew. They stressed the need for a certain temperature as well as aeration to get the super tea and I'm certain that you could source the specifics. I'm presently digging a new veggie garden and amending the soil to about one foot with three year-old horse manure and bedding. As soon as I finish I will add a three or four inch layer of shredded municipal leaves from last fall with about 5 pounds of alfalfa pellets per 100 square feet and till that into the top few inches of the garden. I am also in zone 7 and think that with some moisture this will break down in several weeks and be ready for late spring planting. I saw another thread about using rabbit feed and today I bought an additional 50# bag of rabbit food with a crude protein level of 18% or about 3% nitrogen. It contains a number of trace minerals and some other interesting things like lactobacillus acidophilus, the active yogurt culture. May my microbes be regular!!! This is virgin territory for me as in the past I only used soybean meal or the mixture suggested by Steve Solomon in his book Gardening When it Counts; Growing Food in Hard Times. There have been a number of references to the fertilizer recipe in this forum. It's interesting to see how these experiments work although it is hardly scientific in that there are no different treatments or controls.

Why don't you just purchase a complete organic granular fertilizer & follow the application directions on the package? Because it's balanced you wouldn't get too much nitrogen which makes for large tomato plants, but few fruits. Beans don't need much nitrogen either, but actually can improve your soil for the tomatoes next year if you alternate the rows. Too much of any one thing with individual soil amendments could cause a problem for your garden and you might not have time to correct & replant before your summer crops planting window is over. Like joel_bc amending the row or planting holes for tomatoes, but not the entire garden is reasonable & cost effective. I've lasagna gardened for our new mixed perennial beds, but not in the vegetable beds. It's amazing how much it composts down from where you mounded it all up. I have used a lot of sheet mulch of various ingredients over the years with great conditioning. I've used alfalfa pellets as a topdressing around flowering shrubs & heavy feeding perennials, but not in the vegetable garden. I also have put them in a watering can to dissolve in the sun warmed water in summer, but it really smelled after a few days. Plus where I piled it up & didn't mix into the soil around the hostas it attracted a stray dog that broke all sorts of plant stems getting into the flower garden. I used the diluted liquid for recent transplants to get them off to a good start when planted in our summer dry season & was only a light green not a dark green color. I would be careful about mixing it into the root zone soil of young plants, but should be safe as a diluted tea mixture. Since I prefer to use soaker hoses for summer watering of vegetable beds, mixing a complete fertilizer into the soil prior to seeding or transplanting is less labor than side dressing or watering with anything additional than tap water. Find out what the organic gardeners in your area add to soils. You don't always have time or money for a good soil test, but they can give you a good idea of the condition of local soils whether usually acidic or alkaline. For example in my area with 60+ inches of rain 9 months of the year we have acidic soils that need yearly fall lime + nutrients even in manure enriched soils. It simply washes out, so I follow the recommended application rate in the spring and use organic mulches as well. Nothing seems overgrown or out of the ordinary, but grows more quickly now than in years when I only used poultry & rabbit manures from our backyard animals. It's worth the extra $ to buy the complete organic fertilizer for me. The brands in my area are Dr. Earth or Whitney Farms and the application rate is different for each, so I just read and follow the directions each time I use it. Hope that helps~ Corrine

I sure do, gray. It's in Millbury called Roger's Farm and Garden. 508-865-1599. 269 W. Main Street. What they don't have in stock, they will order for you. I just recently had them order me some soybean meal and it was ready the next week. The alfalfa pellets (not sure about the meal) and soybean both cost about $11/50 lb. bag, but can go up and down in price to a degree. They are very nice in there and I'm glad I found them. It took me a long time to find a place in my area, and I'm getting ready to get some cornmeal or cracked corn for them this week.

I get the worst allergic attacks when I spread soybean meal, I mean BAD. Have you ever sneezed 24 consecutive times in a matter of a minute or so? Alfalfa does not bother me. The funny thing is that I don't react to consumed soy products, just the dust. Fortunately soy bean meal is no where to be found locally this year so I don't have to bother. The reactions usually last just 20 minutes, give or take, nothing persistent, but everyone is different when it comes to the respiratory system.