Quote:
Originally Posted by momoese
I grow mostly desert bananas, canna, ginger, tanglad, Ti, heliconia, plumeria, blueberry, strawberry, mango, citrus, babaco, passion fruit, tomato, lettuce, bamboo, palm, night blooming jasmine, hot peppers, giant bird of paradise, geranium, many types of succulents, aloe, agave, lawn for the dogs to play, weeds (they like it here too), many herbs, pineapples, kangaroo paw, yucca, puya, and soon kei apple. I'm sure I missed a bunch of things but you get the point. The acid loving plants receive some coffee grounds, otherwise they all find what they need from the soil. No problems with insects, they eat and get eaten by others, and few holes in my lettuce doesn't scare me.
I'm perfectly happy with the results and as the saying goes, if it aint broke don't fix it.
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Excellent! Now, it seems your working with excellent soil to begin with. I live in South Florida. Mother Nature designed for this area to be a swampland. Man decided to make canals and drain all the water...then level any uneven soil with rocks and build the house we suburbian Miamians live on.
In some spots in my yard, I need a jack hammer to dig more than a few inches!
I've found Pepsi cans from the 70's, wooden fence posts, chain fence posts, orange construction netting, glass beer bottles, shoes, milk jugs, roof tiles and other construction materials, a leather glove, a sock, rope, and a ton of small budweiser beer cans in my yard while digging holes for my trees and veggie garden.
My point is that "organic" practices have best results in places with rich soil to begin with. What about those in nutrient defficient soils? Jaboticaba is native to Brazil while Figs are from the Mediterranean, yet they are both growing in my yard. The Jaboticaba has far more nutrient needs here than most figs for obvious reasons.
So, how could I meet the nutrient demand for my different trees without resorting to a convenient, cheap fertilizer?