Yesterday, with a few snow flurries and a biting wind,
D collected seaweed to help fertilize the vegetable garden...
though we still have many months before planting season.
Along the coast, a hint of green is upon the rocks,a subtle reminder of spring
while still in the midst of winter.
8 comments:
I love these small hints of spring in the midst of the cold! We're going out for a hike this afternoon, and I'll be looking for them in the meadows where we go.
Your photos are lovely! xo Gigi
Nan, does D compost the seaweed? or rinse it off to make it less salty? i know i've heard that it is very rich in minerals (and once bought some extremely smelly kelp emulsion for my garden) but don't know how you use the real fresh stuff. Could we send you some snow, please? *g*
brrrrr... :)
stay warm out there nan!
to Quiltcat from D
Hello there,
I try to only gather DRY seaweed. In the winter, it's so dry and cold that the seaweed above the average high tide mark dries to a crisp in the winter winds. Dry seaweed weights a 10th of Wet seaweed. That means you only have to lift a fraction of the wet weight. The dried seaweed crumbles into my bags. A hundred pounds of dry seaweed = a thousand pounds of wet.
The salt factor is not that great. You would have to dump thousands of pounds on your garden to effect the soil. If you dig it in during the winter, the winter/early spring rains will rinse most of the salt through the root zone of your plants and not effect them.
A forty gallon garbage can filled with crumbled seaweed will hold the equivalent of a thousand pounds of wet seaweed. This will supply several years of trace elements to your soil plus enzymes in the seaweed that stimulated your soil microbes.
If you are not near the ocean, you should plan to get as much in one trip as you can by raking the seaweed above the high tide mark and coming back several days later to harvest the dry seaweed into containers for the trip home. Don't let it get wet with a rain, it will smell horrible. If you can't get the seaweed really dry, dig it into the soil as fast as possible to cut down on the smell :)
quiltcat,
I thought I had better put D,the gardener, on to answer your seaweed question. He's a wealth of knowledge on many subjects! I can't believe how much snow you've gotten while we had nothing! A friend in Virginia called and she has 40 inches of snow! Keep us posted!
Gigi,
Thanks again for stopping by...isn't is exciting to see little signs of spring in the middle of winter! Any walks planned for Great Meadows?
Stop by again!
Lori ann,
Oh, when the temperature goes up to the 30's it miraculously feels quite warm after being in the teens and low 20's for extended periods of time. Funny how that works!
Nan, thanks for asking D to make a guest appearance, that was very helpful info! and boy, do i know what the seaweed would smell like if allowed to get wet...that kelp emulsion might have been healthy for plants but i gagged every time i used it!
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