David Alguire plants tips for organic gardening
Posted Mar 4, 2010 By EMC News
Email
Print
Tweet ThisEMC Events - Brockville and District Horticultural Society had its regular monthly meeting on Feb. 15. The speaker was David Alguire of Clover Gardens in Soperton, Ont.
Alguire gave a very interesting talk on organic gardens and starting seeds. He spoke of techniques to improve soil such as crop rotation, green manure, compost, manure, tea and mulch. He has two 40 x 50 ft. plots where he rotates crops each year.
The order to rotate is:
1. Tomatoes,
2. Squash,
3. Potatoes,
4. Brassicas,
5. Legumes,
6. Corn,
7. Root crops.
There is reasoning behind this, i.e. legumes provide nitrogen to the soil. The next year corn, a heavy nitrogen user, is planted to utilize the nitrogen in the soil.
Alguire also uses a shredder to process wood chips and poultry manure to prepare soil to transplant into. He uses heavy layers of newspaper and covers this with straw to create mulch. When he grows corn, he lets it grow about a foot high, hand cultivates the ground and then plants peas and soybeans around it. This keeps weeds down. Grass clippings are good mulch around small plants such as carrots and beets. He uses fall rye crop as green manure.
Alguire also explained how he started seeds by soil blocking. He takes one-third compost, one-third peat moss and one-third pro-mix. You mix this until it is very runny with a texture like wet cement. He also adds some mineral mix. He puts this into the soil block molds and taps it down, then takes each soil block out and places it in a seed tray. It is now ready for planting with no transplant shock.
Alguire also spoke about Reemay, a plant covering that traps heat. It is good to use over tomato cages as well.
The horticultural society's March meeting will be held on March 15 and the speaker will be Penny Stewart, district assistant director who will talk on gardens she has visited and on the Ontario Horticultural Association.
blog comments powered by Disqus
