Pushing Fertilizer

LEON: June is the time to start enjoying the fruits of your work—maybe. We are writing this in May, wondering what June will be like. This spring has been a bit chilly and wet, but the climate is always changing. June should be getting hot and a bit dry. If things are going well you will be harvesting beans, tomatoes, sweet corn, and other goodies. We were a bit late at the Craven Gardening Research Center, but the plants are looking good; we expect a good harvest and will report on it next month.

Considering the recent ammonium nitrate explosion at the West Fertilizer Company in Texas, maybe we should talk a little about fertilizer—especially nitrogen and ammonium nitrate. Though nitrogen gas is plentiful in the air, plants can only use what we call “fixed nitrogen.” Avoiding a lot of useless chemistry, let’s simply explain that plants need the nitrate or ammonium forms of nitrogen. This fixed nitrogen is produced naturally by a wide range of microorganisms, but that isn’t nearly enough for farms to produce the food that our large population needs.

Here is where the “Haber process” comes in. About one hundred years ago Fritz Haber found that combining natural gas, high steam pressure, and nitrogen from the air could produce ammonia. Then came WWII when the U.S. needed a lot of ammonia to convert into nitrates for production of explosives. There was plenty of natural gas, and eighty percent of the earth’s atmosphere is nitrogen, so all that was missing were a lot of ammonia factories. When the war ended, farm organizations bought these surplus ammonia factories at a real bargain to produce ammonium nitrate cheaply.

The demand for ammonium nitrate exploded; but ammonium nitrate also exploded. We of the elderly persuasion remember the Texas City explosion back in 1947. There were two ships loaded with 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate, and a fire started on one of them. The explosion killed 581 people, including all but one of the firemen fighting it. There were over 8,000 victims from the explosion.

Maybe we should also add a word about the Gulf “dead zone” described in the May issue of National Geographic magazine. There has always been a small dead zone out there; remember that the Mississippi River drains most of the country, including plant nutrients from the forests and plains. With our large population, fertilizer (both organically derived and commercially made) drains from lawns, farms, feedlots, and unmentionable places. Grass and other plants can catch it temporarily, but fertilizer will eventually decay and travel down river. Currently, the dead zone is very large, and I hope someone finds a solution; but with our population, fertilizer, organic or not, is necessary.

The point for this discussion is that, down here where it rains a lot and the weather is (usually) warm, your garden is going to need nitrogen fertilizer every year. You should have the soil tested every few years; but if you have been using the soil for gardening very long, the soil report will always suggest that you add a certain amount of nitrogenous fertilizer. It will probably suggest adding ammonium sulphate, maybe sodium nitrate, and maybe urea. Urea is also made from natural gas and nitrogen from the air, but it is messy to use. If you decide to use urea, handle it with rubber gloves. Our suggestion is that you locate a fertilizer designed for turf grass use. It is a “complete” fertilizer but has high nitrogen content.

Now a few words for our armchair gardeners who are dreaming of a garden. Two months ago you selected your garden spot, five rows wide and twenty-two feet long. You borrowed your friend’s tiller and worked the ground up. Since then you have been waiting for the weeds to grow—especially the perennials like nutgrass and bermudagrass. Maybe by June those weeds will have grown; if so, you should spray the whole area with roundup and give it about a week to work. Then you will lay out the water furrows that will go between the rows. Put a stake at one side of the plot and lay off five more stakes, four feet apart. Do the same at the lower end of the garden. (If you want to be precise, you might run a string between the upper and lower stakes.) Dig down about five or six inches and place that soil to each side where the raised rows will be. At this time you might want to take a soil sample; you can buy a kit put out by the LSU AgCenter. Now go back to your easy chair and read for a few weeks. More weeds will come up and you should spray them again. By then the report of the soil sample will have come back, and it will tell you how much lime to use. Do this now because it takes awhile for the lime to react. Next month we will talk about putting out fertilizer, killing weed seeds, and getting ready to plant the crop.

ANNE: As for the crop we planted a couple of months ago, all is well and we think this might be our most successful gardening experience yet. Obviously we have Leon to thank for that.

There was a bit of drama a few weeks ago when I accidentally pulled a young watermelon vine out of the ground while weeding. Michael was not amused and told me so in no uncertain terms. A few minutes later, little Julia—fascinated as she was by the (negative) attention that Michael sent my way—toddled over to the same plot and pulled a watermelon vine of her own right out of the ground. Michael thought it was cute when she did it, so the attention she received was of a happier variety. In any case, three vines remain and seem to be doing well.

It’s business as usual in the backyard and we all continue to play our roles. Leon is the brains of the outfit, Michael is the brawn, and I cheer them on and weed about once a month (I still like to weed with my hands instead of a spray bottle). For her part, Julia has become a taste tester extraordinaire. Soon after the Japanese plums faded away, our blackberries popped onto the scene, now she enjoys a handful or so daily. At this writing, the majority of the berries haven’t ripened yet, but the early bloomers have been delicious. Julia has the blackberry-stained shirts to prove it.

Leon’s Gardening Tips for June

With our poor spring weather predictions, it’s getting harder to comment on what the weather will be next month. June should be a good harvest month for spring vegetables—and we hope it will be. June is usually dry, so you might consider irrigation. Caladiums, coleus, and crotons should be flowering. Hibiscus and copper plants should be doing well. It’s not too late to plant annuals such as amaranth, cosmos, marigolds, and zinnias. Impatiens and begonias should look great in partly shaded spots. A lot of bulbous plants such as caladiums, canna, dahlia and hymenocallis should do well in the summer heat.

Blueberries, peaches, and plums should ripen this month. It is too early to plan for the fall garden but you might consider planting tomato seeds in late June or early July. Keep watching for insect infestations and be thankful that the stinging caterpillars are nearly gone.