As the snow falls here in Western Colorado many of us are getting excited for gardening season. We’re checking our seed catalogs, talking to other gardeners and farmers, and getting out our flats to plant seeds. Colorado has some amazingly warm and sunny weather, even in the winter, and it’s hard to contain our excitement when those beautiful days come in March. We always recommend Memorial Day weekend as the earliest safe day to plant outside in Colorado. If you are at low elevation you could go earlier and high elevation folks might want to go later but regardless of elevation, every year we see tons of folks bummed because they froze their first crop. Fortunately, for all of you proud owners of Growing Spaces Growing Domes, you can forgo this potential frustration and get straight to the fun stuff!
Living, Organic Potting Mixes
Now we get to the soil. I got into soil work because it has the biggest impact on growers having a great season. Most Growing Dome owners use one of our living organic potting mixes so I’ll start with that assumption for this article to simplify. Your Paonia Soil Co. mix is engineered to provide the mineral nutrients your plants need, and the microbial life needed to deliver those nutrients, for a full growing season. We have low-, medium-, and high-strength choices based on what type of plants you are trying to grow. For the most part, Dome growers are using our high-strength blends—either The Bomb 50/50 or our Raised Bed Mix. After that first season, you will want to replenish the nutrient fertility of the soil one way or another.
Restoring Nitrogen
For the last 50 years or so, using a synthetic soluble salt fertilizer has been the most popular way to fertilize. Salt fertilizers have been shown to cause a number of problems, for example, harming your good soil biology and weakening your plants’ immune systems. Because of these and a truckload of other issues, we favor regenerative, organic, ‘natural’ methods instead. If we were outside, with large acreage, we would start with cover crops and crop rotation to help boost fertility and organic matter. While these practices work in a greenhouse, your space is at a premium, so we’re going to work with nature and help accelerate the process.
Nitrogen is the most consumed nutrient by most plants. Almost every garden needs more nitrogen, every season. Nitrogen deficiency results in yellowing plant leaves and slow growth among other issues. Paonia Soil Co. has three products aimed at solving your N deficiency naturally. The one we are directing most people towards is Lawngevity. It is a full-spectrum soil conditioner that does what everyone wants compost to do and more. It provides a lot of nitrogen along with a little bit of every other nutrient that plants need from phosphorus to calcium to zinc. Depending on your gardening method, you can till it in or top dress it on, and either way you don’t have to worry about burning your plants. We love compost and use it in all of our mixes, but if you use straight compost as your only amendment, for more than a couple of seasons, you will go potassium-toxic and reduce your plants’ abilities to uptake nutrients.
Balancing pH
The final issue I see a lot in arid, alkaline states like Colorado is pH. Some folks in the natural farming movement say that soil biology should automatically handle pH issues. While this is the case with pH up to 7.8, above that, all the acid your plants can make is being swept away by the alkaloids in your soil and water. Historically, we’ve recommended using vinegar, however, in recent years, we were able to source a high-quality, fully organic, citric acid for a quarter the price of horticultural vinegar. We call this product pHd.
The most basic way to use pHd is to sprinkle a little bit right on the soil every now and then. However, the best way to use pHd is to add it to your water. For this method, we can’t say enough about a little product called the Hozon. It screws to the hose bib on your house. It was designed to inject fertilizer into your water but also works great for injecting citric acid. All you have to do is fill a five-gallon bucket with water, add some pHd, mix it up and every time you water, you will be balancing your pH. If you want to upgrade from the Hozon and incorporate the injection into your pump, you can opt for the Dosatron
At Paonia Soil Co. we know you are trusting us with helping make your dream garden come alive and we take that responsibility to heart. What dreams can you bring to life this season? The dome is the limit!
Established in 2012, Paonia Soil Co. is a Colorado-based, family-owned manufacturer of fully mineralized, living, organic potting soils and soil conditioners. With a broad customer base ranging from the Denver Botanic Gardens to the US Forest Service, to the backyard gardener, we’re passionate about cultivating a diverse soil food web and making it simple, successful, and profitable to use for growers, gardeners, and landscapers alike!
