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Bruce R Leech
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6796
Registered: 9-20-2004
Location: Ensenada formerly Mulege
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Mood: A lot cooler than Mulege
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Ca ca de Vaca is much better than the alfalfa. it will release nitrogen much sooner and continue for the entire season.it also contains many other
micro nutrients.
Bruce R Leech
Ensenada
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jrbaja
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4863
Registered: 2-2-2003
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As far as the dung goes,
most everyone uses caca de chivo and they say it is much better than BS.
We are heading south Tuesday Bruce so we will stop say hello on the way down.
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comitan
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4177
Registered: 3-27-2004
Location: La Paz
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Mood: mellow
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I think JR is right because ca ca de vaca has a lot of grass & weeds because that is what they eat. Chivo like to eat the leaves of the trees.
Strive For The Ideal, But Deal With What\'s Real.
Every day is a new day, better than the day before.(from some song)
Lord, Keep your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth.
“The sincere pursuit of truth requires you to entertain the possibility that everything you believe to be true may in fact be false”
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Diver
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4729
Registered: 11-15-2004
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Have you ever tried puting those herbs in the hole before you plant ?
Your tomatoes will be really mellooooow....
They may procrastinate and not produce fruit until August.
They may forget to fruit altogether.
You will have to water them more often (cotton mouth).
They want to be fed multiple times a day and night.
Desparate hippies can be worse than gophers.
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Don Jorge
Senior Nomad
Posts: 648
Registered: 8-29-2003
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Alfalfa as Fertilizer!
Without getting technical. Dry weight, alfalfa has more N than caca de vaca. Vacas eat alfalfa, ruminate it through a 5 chambered stomach and suck
most of the nutrient value out of all they eat before expelling caca. They expel caca de sal y hierbas malas. We never use it or horse manure for
that reason.
I had never heard of using of using alfalfa as a fertilizer, as a cover crop yes, but most alfalfa is 12-14% N dry weight so it makes a hole bunch of
sense. An appropriate technology.
The commercial fertilizers I use, all OMRI certified organic and made up of a blend of bone meal, feather meal, blood meal, mined rock phosphate and
potash is guaranteed at 7-8-5 N-P-K. Alfalfa kicks it's butt in the N. And alfalfa is readily available in Baja!
Tomatoe growing, IMHO: grow from seed, grow lots of varieties, I typically grow 50 or more varieties a season, fertilize very liberally, mulch the
plants around the base, prune the plants below the first node when young, keep 'em pruned to 2 or 3 main branches, this promotes flowering and air
circulation, use calcium of some sort in the planting hole, this stops blossom/fruit end rot, water deeply when needed and pay your kids or neighbors
to pick the worms off. Also, planting fennel nearby attracts the moths to them, not the tomatoes, which lay the eggs which hatch into worms.
Sea shells are a good source of P and most western soils are good in K.
These giuys have a good one stop selection:
http://www.tomatogrowers.com/
A good eating tomato is one of the simple pleasures of summer!
[Edited on 4-4-2005 by Don Jorge]
�And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry
years. It was always that way.�― John Steinbeck
"All models are wrong, but some are useful." George E.P. Box
"Nature bats last." Doug "Hayduke" Peac-ck
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Bajaddict
Junior Nomad
Posts: 50
Registered: 12-6-2002
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Oranges, anyone?
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Mexitron
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3397
Registered: 9-21-2003
Location: Fort Worth, Texas
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Mood: Happy!
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Don--Never tried alfalpha but sounds good. How quickly is the nitrogen available to the plant though--doesn't it take a while for the bacteria to
release it? I'm under the impression that the nitrogen in manure is rapidly available to plants. I've bought seeds for years from Tomato
Growers--great place. My Brandywines(which I planted in February!) last year grew 16 feet tall and were loaded with fruit. I just used half a bag of
steer manure for each plant and gave a couple shots of Miracle-Gro foliar feed while they were putting on growth. No pesticide, just two treatments
of BT for the hornworms.
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jrbaja
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4863
Registered: 2-2-2003
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Having used and experimented with alfalfa
it apparently is ready immediately because as I mentioned before, the plants with alfalfa in the holes did much better than the ones that I didn't use
it on.
I guess those Kansas farmers know of what they speak when it comes to growing stuff!
Thanks Jorge, your seeds have been spread everywhere down there.
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