Wednesday, October 7, 2015

inoculant

there are a number of beds out in the garden that still have producing plants in them and i am loathe to pull them while they ares till up and running...however the season is shortening daily and if i don't do something there will be no green manures in those beds...so this evening i took some clover, winter vetch, winter rye, yellow pea, and annual rye grass seed and put them in to soak in distilled water...then i took some rhizobia bacteria inoculant and placed it in a container...after the seeds were thoroughly wet ( doesn't take long ) i pulled some out of the distilled water ( i used distilled water because the chlorine in tap water kills rhizobia...saved rain water will work as well ) and rolled them in the inoculant...then i took the coated ( and hard to find ) seeds and planted them in some peat pots to germinate...i also diluted the remaining inoculant in distilled water and watered the pots with it...now when the beds are ready to be pulled i will have established green manures to put in...a rhizobia colony can live from two to five years without pulses to provide a symbiotic partner...since i inoculated a number of beds last year i will be using these in the newer beds constructed last spring to establish colonies in them as well...i will probably be doing a few more pots of these before the weekend to be ready when the time comes...can't have too many green manures.

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