The document discusses various techniques for improving soil health and fertility, including using cover crops to add nutrients, reduce erosion, and suppress weeds and diseases. It emphasizes the importance of cover crops, composting, and rotational grazing of chickens as pillars of soil fertility. The document also provides details on specific cover crops, composting methods, and organic pest management strategies.

2.  3 Big Soil-Improving
Goals:
 Reduce Erosion
 Add Plant Matter
 Reduce Decomposition
 Pillars of Soil Fertility
 Cover Crops
 Soil Minerals/Inputs
 Compost

3. Start with a SoilTest

5. Cover Crops
Increase fertility
-Legumes add nitrogen to the
soil through relationship with
rhizobia (70-200 # N / A)
-Grasses add organic matter
And can reduce nutrient loss by
capturing mobile nutrients (N).
-Roots mine down deep into soil to
retrieve nutrients (P)
-Nutrients are released when cover
crop residues are broken down by
decomposer organisms.

6. Other Benefits of Cover Crops:
- Reduce Erosion
-Attracts beneficial insects
-Smothers weeds out
-Rye, mustards are known
to suppress soil borne
diseases
-Allelopathy- Cover crops
such as rye secrete
allelopathic compounds
from their roots, which
inhibit germination and
retard vegetative
development of weeds.

7. Cover Crop--Buckwheat
Grows super fast (6 weeks)
Attracts beneficial insects
Cycles Calcium and Phosphorus
Honeybees love it, and beautiful!

8. Things to Consider when Cover
Cropping
• What cash crop will follow and how
much nitrogen is required?
• What cover crop will be best for
early seeded spring crops?
• Timing is crucial; plant as early as
possible in Fall to get good stand,
optimize rain as irrigation.
• Make sure field is clean of weeds
before seeding cover.
• Mow high biomass covers at least
once to stimulate deeper root
penetration.
• MAKE COVER CROPS A
PRIORITY!

10. Rotational Grazing
Movable coop carries
chickens to different fields to
allow for fresh grazing
Chickens eat bugs and grass
and then release manure thus
adding nutrients
Small-scale, no smell

12.  The value of compost is as an innoculant, not so much as a
fertilizer, esp for heavier feeding crops like cabbage or tomatoes.
 Compost increases the diversity of soil organisms and serves as
food for those organisms.
 Compost Builds Organic Matter!

13. How to Build Compost
Pile
3 ft x 3 ft.
Minimum size
30:1 Carbon to Nitrogen ratio
C sources are brown
(leaves)
N sources are green
(kitchen scraps)
Provide Oxygen, Water
No smell if balanced on
carbon and Nitrogen
Can be built with materials
on hand (pallets, chicken
wire)

14.  Temperature should go up to 131-150 degrees F and stay for 15
days.
 Turn the pile when the temperature reaches 90-100 degrees F
and moisten if necessary.
 The compost is ready when it turns a dark brown or black and
the material is
broken down and not
recognizable.

21. Kelp- 4-13 % K
 Effective for 4-6 months
 Application Rate: 10-20 lbs. per 1,000 sq. ft., 400 - 800 lbs.
per acre.
Green Sand- 1-3 % K
 New Jersey source no longer available
 Russian source now available through 7 Springs and Fedco
Granite Dust- 5% K
 Orthoclase feldspar- pink in color; not gray type found in
Georgia

24.  Preventative Controls
 Soil Fertility
 Giving plants what they want– water, proper temperatures
 Attracting beneficials

25. Let your flying friends help you control pests!
-Establish Hedgerows for beneficial habitat
elderberry good
-Have continuous nectar sources:
--Apiacea (parsley family) and Brassica (mustard family) have shallow nectaries, so easy to
feed from. Plant crops in these families and let flower
--Buckwheat excellent nectar source- keep blooming all summer
-

26. Don’t spray poisons!!! You’ll kill the good guys along
with the bad, creating a vicious cycle

27. -Trap Crop- plant a variety that is desirable by pests and
destroy-
ex. Blue Hubbard Squash produces a lot of cucurbic acid. Pests attracted to this
- Timing
Take a break mid summer with squash, cucumber, and beans, when pests of these crops
are at highest population
-Weed and Mow- weeds harbor pests

28.  Rotation:
-At least 3 years between susceptible crops
 Little effect on highly mobile pests such as cucumber
beetle
 Substantial suppression on less mobile pests such as
subterranean insects, pests with 1 generation per
year, and Colorado Potato Beetle
 Distance required may exceed space available:
 ¼ mile minimum distance from previous crop for CPB
control

29.  Hand picking
 Companion Planting- cilantro with tomatoes
 Floating Row Cover
 Organic Sprays- last option
 Bt
 Neem
 Pyganic

30. Squash Vine Borer
Spotted Cucumber Beetle
Squash Bug and Eggs
Adult
Thrips
Aphids

31. Know your
friends so you
don’t kill
them!

32.  Companion planting is the technique of combining two or more
plants for a particular
purpose:
-Repel or trap pests.
-Provide food and shelter to attract and
protect beneficial insects.
-Some plants grow well together
because they don’t compete for light
or rooting space (Interplanting)

33. Use plants as a “lure” :
 Blue Hubbard Squash attracts squash vine borer and cucumber
beetle.
perimeter trap crop planting of blue hubbard has shown reduced damage
in large squash fields.
**pests must be destroyed, otherwise they will move into field to the
squash/cucumbers!

34. Buckwheat and Sunflowers
Traps Crops for stink bugs
Bugs must be removed from trap crop!

35.  Plants that produce large amounts of easily accessible nectar will
bring in predators of pests:
-Bronze Fennel
-Cilantro
-Dill
(all in carrot family)
- Bachelor buttons
-Buckwheat

36.  Radish and Mustard Flowers feed lady bugs and syrphid flies
early in the spring
 Plant them in the fall and let them flower in the spring
 Or plant them in the early spring and let them flower early
summer

37. Broccoli with arugula growing beside it.

38. Some examples to try:
 Radish and Carrots: Plant radishes in with carrot seed. The
radishes will germinate first. As you harvest the radishes you're
naturally thinning the carrot stand, making more space for them
to grow.
 Lettuce and Peas: Plant heat tolerant varieties of lettuce at the
base of climbing spring peas. The peas will help shade the
lettuce as the season gets hotter.
 Radishes beside cabbage; Herbs between cabbage plants

39. When do we plant here in
Georgia?
• Late Feb/March: Carrots,
Beets, Turnips, Lettuce,
Spinach, Broccoli, Cauliflower,
Collards, Kale, Chard, Asian
greens, Sugar Snap Peas, and
herbs
• Most root crops should be
direct seeded but many of
your greens can be
transplanted allowing you to
bypass the frustrating
germination phase

40. When do we plant here in
Georgia?
• Mid August/September:
Carrots, Beets, Turnips,
Lettuce, Spinach, Broccoli,
Cauliflower, Collards, Kale,
Chard, Asian greens, Sugar
Snap Peas, and herbs
• Onions, Garlic, and
strawberries can be planted in
late fall to mature in late spring
• All summer crops planted
outside early-mid April, after
chance of frost.

41.  Crops that are continually picked or are less heat tolerant may be
re-planted every few weeks to ensure a quality harvest into the
early summer.
 By successively planting Lettuce you will keep your salad bowl
full of fresh, less bitter greens throughout the summer! ** Be sure
to use summer crisp or ‘Batavian’ varieties in the hottest months!

43. Education:
Georgia Organics- www.georgiaorganics.org
ATTRA- www.attra.org
Chatham County, NC extention –pest info
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/chatham/ag/SustAg/index
Books:
The New Organic Grower by Eliot Coleman
The Intelligent Gardener by Steve Solomon