You can not raise tomatoes in New Hampshire without calcium and magnesium and Epson salts furnishes the mag. Granite does not have the minerals limestone does. However your local greenhouse supply, not garden supply, will have 50 lb bags for about what you will pay for 5 lbs with shipping. I also buy calcium nitrite, potassium nitrate, sulfur, mixed ammonium nitrate with additives and blended so it will not explode with fuel oil and a lot of other garden chemicals in 50 lb bags for my greenhouse and always try to have enough for 2 to 3 years ahead. Use hydroponics with a blend of organic and non organic fertilizers. Under normal conditions I would not suggest using ag chemicals for internal use but use them externally now and would use them if nothing else were available.
Thanks, @duane. I did not know that about New Hampshire. I just love greenhouse gardening. It sounds like you do too. I will check and get those items at supply house. I like to have items I may need stored up. Good list. I have the sulfur and 13-13-13 and we have pure nitrogen stored. We get mushroom mulch from a friend and horse manure from another friend. We let it sit all winter and have a great garden. Fava beans also help with nitrogen. My hubby planted a row of them and the next year the peas in the same row grew like crazy and very tall. @duane, do you know anything about fava beans?
I love to eat them and they are good for the garden but have no experience growing them. For beans, have tried 3 sisters approach and string beans instead. Soil here is poor and you need lime, granite dust or some other micro nutrients and fertilizer as well as compost to get a decent crop anywhere other than a few valley bottoms that are usually infested with up scale houses. Any general purpose, 10 10 10 or 13 13 13 fertilizer will help for growing in soil, but very few have any micro nutrients, magnesium or calcium and you may end up with either blossom drop or rot as well as a lot more problems with blights and fungus. At least that was my learning experience. Love and hate mushroom compost. Been sterilized in order to allow them to minimize disease and be sure only the selected mushroom grows and has no weed seeds, but it doesn't have all the live colonies to support your soil that you would find in a good compost.
I think I will take the 5 pounds of fava seeds and throw in the garden. @duane. lol When we planted Fava, they got so tall (about 2 ft.) and plop, just fell over. My hubby likes the 6-10 FT. plants that have a large harvest. We plant Organic black, Red Mexician, Rattlesnake, Asparagus Beans, Red Noodle (a friend sent me some) & Purple Hull Beans. We planted basil on one side of the tomatoes and Asparagus in between the next tomato and the blossom rot stopped. It has something to do with the bugs that attack one and eaten by the other. Anyway, it worked the following year like a charm. We do it every year now. We also mix in our wood ashes in the garden and that seems to really help. Can You Plant Tomatoes Next to Asparagus?
Bingo on the wood ashes in moderation. They have all the minerals left after the carbon burns off, but they can also be used to make lye for soap and thus are basic and can mess up the ph balance of your soil. Wood ashes are one of our least used resources today.
You are right, @duane. We use it for something. We have a pile for the compost. I use it when building livestock posts for planting herbs, etc. I will use it more sparingly now. Maybe about 1-2 cups to 5 gallon pot? I use hay and leaves in the bottom of my pots so I won't use so much dirt. It breaks down eventually. I would love to make soap that way.
@pearlselby i will have to try asparagus and tomatoes as companion plants. THat is awesome! I never thought about interplanting those two.. Thanks!! Here is @Motomom34 post on Epsom salt as a cross link Epsom Salt | Survival Monkey Forums
Thank you, @Ganado, I should have searched before I posted. Sorry You will be pleasingly surprised at how well the three do together. Total 180 for us.
I did not do that cross reference for you to feel guilty silly. @pearlselby I did it because I like cross references on this site so we can find things . I cross linked to this thread as well.
Side note from silence of the lambs about Fava beans...(this is apparently a medical joke. The combination is apparently lethal), due to a chemical reaction between these items. Only medical personal might catch the joke.)
