Forgot to water yesterday, things to do and it's blasted hot.

 It is now full on summer for my side of the country. Record heat all the way to the midwest and some parts of the east coast. Been mostly Southwest records this early in the season so to that, I already covered when to water and how. 

I thought of a funny adaptation of 'What we have heah is a failyah to communicate' and instead of communicate it was something else to do with gardening. Eradicate? Irrigate? Cultivate? Something. Oh well.

Still haven't gotten the other bed properly amended, but I did water the heck out of it today.

Now what I did was, watered my other bed 'thoroughly' (meaning the water likely went down maybe a 1/4 inch. Then I turned to this bed, which had purslane starting to grow in it, hosed it down, grabbed the hoe and sprayed, hoed, sprayed continually until it was this puddle/pool about an inch deep. THAT should be well watered and drained by tomorrow. Will go pick up that bag of Happy Frog and maybe a zucchini plant before it gets too late in the season.

Now let's do a comparison between the Happy Frog soil and the Miracle Grow Raised Bed Soil

MG Raised Bed ingredients are:

"This product is regionally formulated from (one or more of the following: peat, processed forest products, and/or compost), and (sphagnum peat moss and/or coir), poultry litter, alfalfa meal, bone meal, kelp meal and earthworm castings."

 

Fox Farms Happy Frog Soil Conditioner:

"Contains finely screened pH-balanced forest humus, earthworm castings, bat guano, beneficial microbes and humic acid. Happy Frog Soil Conditioner stimulates root development and helps plants access the uptake of important micro-nutrients."

 

See the difference? Other than the wording there is a world of difference in what they place an emphasis on in the mix. MG is good, it has a lot of organic stuff in it and generally good. No complaints there. 

The Fox Farms also adds the microbes and humic acid as well as bat guano (likely instead of 'poultry litter'). There is forest humus as well as humic acid..both good for what I need. But given my soil composition having the additional forest products/compost and peat moss is sounding better. The MG seems to have more composty type things (and it is about $5 cheaper) and if I need any of the microbes and other nutrients, that's what the fertilizer is for. I will likely take the fertilizer and mix it with the soil then mix it into the dirt.

 

Now to the wording. Most every amendment you put in the soil, whether it be fertilizer or compost will stimulate root development. There are buzz words that companies use to catch the attention of the consumer to make it sound even better than it is. It's not lying, it's embellishing. There are some advantages to using products with micro organisms and micro nutrients over just plain compost. 

Frankly, MG got on the organic band wagon likely when people started preferring organics over their quick fix fast growth products. All plants need to grow at their own pace, growers force plants to grow quicker because they need to make a profit and get their plants to selling size quickly. Home growers don't need to do that.

Example 1: My tomato and pepper:

 

Planted May 28, 2021

June 18, 2021

Growing by leaps and bounds for sure! And flowering very well also!

So with only the soil that was in the ground (amended and I never did test it) using a good organic fertilizer, these will be producing fruit in another two weeks for sure. 

They've doubled or tripled their size in a matter of almost three weeks. I can only hope for results just as good with a zucchini plant in the other bed.

I explained about fertilizers and soil before but it's always good to see what the ingredients are and where they come from. Then judge what you need by what your base soil is like. I love how well the sandy clay drains which is good, but then you add in forest products and compost and other organic matter and it starts holding things together at the same time creating drainage as well as holding more water around the roots. We shall see what happens. 

Pictures when I get there.