Checkbooks, Stools and the Three Bears

Growing Vegetables is like:

Maintaining a healthy checking account

A 3 legged stool – all legs have to be in balance to stay up right

Using the 3 Bears scale

Out of balance means unhappy and unproductive plants

Remember we talked about the Three Bears Scale previously when it came to the soil level in the garden beds? Well, the Three Bears scale applies to all aspects of gardening.

  Too much       –       Too little         –             Just right 

 



 Too much or too little water. Too much or too little fertilizer. Too much or too little sun.  To achieve that Happy Medium (as in getting the scales to balance to Just Right) think of your bed as a checking account.

 

  You have to make regular deposits because the soil only holds a finite amount of water and fertilizer. When the plant uses fertilizer and water (makes withdrawals) you need to make deposits again.  When the plant has a negative balance in the account….it suffers, quits producing fruit and ultimately dies if no deposits are made. Even if deposits are made to prevent death, the health of the plant has been harmed.

Besides watering and fertilizing, there is a 3rd component to a happy garden. Mulching.

                                                                 photo by Bob Myers

 Gardening is a never ending cycle of adding water, fertilizer and mulch to maintain the health and productivity of the plants we are growing. There is one more aspect you could add to this so that instead of a 3 legged stool it is a 4 legged table - amending the soil.

To amend your soil properly every year, work in 1 – 2 inches of organic matter into the top 6-8 inches of soil. Adding organic amendments increases moisture holding capacity in sandy soils and drainage in clay soils. It also breaks down further to stabilize soil structure and feed microorganisms and add micro nutrients. Denise talked about her favorite method of amending her soil a couple of days ago in her post on Prepping Garden Beds.

Amy Whitney at the Cobb County Extension Office made a post on her blog about Plant Health Management. It is really excellent reading about how important it is to prevent problems from occurring in the first place.

If we water, fertilize, mulch and choose the right plants for the right time of year, we can prevent many of our problems.