Spring Soil
Here is a unique recipe for a Spring garden elixir that is easy to mix, completely non-toxic and hugely beneficial to jump-starting your garden’s soil in getting it ready for planting. It comes courtesy of Crop Services International, who has over 35 years experience in helping growers accomplish their goals. They provide a Non-Toxic/Biological/Sustainable approach to growing food, from a full scale commercial farm to the home gardener. We are currently studying “The Non-Toxic Farming Handbook” that they wrote to educate ourselves more on improving our knowledge and approach.
This recipe is based on a 20′ x 50′ garden, or 1000 sq. ft. Make the adjustments for your garden size.
Spring Garden Soil Elixer
2 to 4 weeks before your local planting date, apply the lime to the soil evenly with a spreader. Then spread the compost evenly on top of the lime.
Mix together in a 5 gallon bucket-
- 20-24 oz liquid fish fertilizer
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 1 16 oz bottle of cola – NOT DIET!
- 2 12 oz cans of beer (!)
- 1 cup of Borax powder
- 1 qt cranberry juice – make sure to get 100% cranberry juice, not a dilution
- Mix well with a stirrer and thin with enough water to enable mixture to be sprayed with a tank type or hose-end sprayer.
- It must be noted that the sprayer cannot have been used to spray any chemical treatments like herbicides, pesticides, etc. as this will put those chemicals onto your soil, killing the microbial life in the soil and feeding the chemicals to the plants, where you wind up eating them!
- Apply the mix evenly over lime and compost base with sprayer. If needed, go back over with second application to use up all of the batch, just make sure to apply evenly.
- Broad-fork or lightly rototill garden soil. If using a rototiller, don’t go more than 4 inches deep at the maximum. Most of the biological growth happens at the 2-3 inch mark and the soil is turned over an inch or so beyond what the tines reach. Tilling deeper only destroys microbial life in the soil, setting you back in your efforts to create and build biologically active soil.
Buy a 50 lb bag of high calcium lime (calcitic limestone or calcium carbonate) from your local garden center. It needs to be high calcium lime with as low magnesium as possible. 5% or less is great, up to 10% is acceptable, but nothing over 10%. A higher magnesium percentage causes a release of nitrogen in your soil, greatly decreasing its fertility. It also overloads both the chemical and biological processes of soil. Do not buy Dolomite lime, as it has too much magnesium. High calcium lime is best for soils at a pH of 7 or below. For soils with a pH of 7 or higher, use gypsum (calcium sulfate).
When purchasing the fish fertilizer, if you can find one that also has kelp or seaweed, even better.
Blackstrap molasses is best for its increased mineral content. Unsulphured is preferred, but not absolutely necessary. One of the best sources of inexpensive molasses is a feed store that supplies horses, as it can be bought by the gallon for much less than at a supermarket.
100 lbs of rich, well-rotted, seasoned compost to add to garden soil. This can be purchased or from your own compost pile.
Do not buy diet cola, as the Aspartame/NutriSweet used as the sweetener acts as a chelating agent, meaning it ties up the minerals and nutrients in the soil making them unavailable to the plants. (It also does the same thing in your body!) The cola has Phosphorus to add to the mix along with sugars.
The beer adds B vitamins- no, not vitamin Beer!
The Borax powder adds Boron, one of the most important elements in the biochemical sequence of plant growth.
Once you have applied the elixer and broad-forked or lightly tilled the soil, get your garden planning and seedlings ready. We will show you another planting elixer to use just before planting the seeds and transplanting the seedlings into the garden in the next article.
This is a great start towards sustainable, biological agriculture in your own garden. Remember, though, it is just a start; a good step in the right direction. To continue to make progress in knowledge and in soil health, you need to find out where you are starting from. Do more reading, ask questions and get a complete soil analysis, not just the NPK and pH soil tests that are widely offered. Spend the $50 or so and find out exactly where your garden soil is at, and then you will be able to make sound decisions on where you want and need to go. Then you won’t be guessing and shooting in the dark, trying to do what is right but not really knowing if you are making positive progress.
Do you mean the Borax that you can find in supermarkets or a different kind?
Hello Ghislaine-
Yes, 20 Mule Team Borax is what you are looking for.
Great! Thank you, Stephen. I’ll try that.
I got a bit confused. It is the second list of ingredients that covers 1,000 sq ft, right? And the 50# of lime and 100# of compost are for that much area as well? Thanks for the fun recipe! (Though I never thought of Coke as non-toxic before!)
Hello Jill-
Yes, the second list is the recipe, the first list is the list of what to buy for the garden to help this year’s production and growth.
Coke or commercial colas are good for helping to start the soil building process, as well as an acid wash to clean greasy, grimy auto parts and baked on grease in kitchen pots and pans. Just soak them for a few hours and the parts will come out shiny clean! Scary to think that is the same acid that many folks drink!
What does the cranberry juice contribute to the soil?
Hello Claudia-
cranberry juice is full of vitamins and minerals, as well as acting as an anti-bacterial agent and having an acidic pH. Depending on how the juice is processed, it can contain significant amino acids as well.
Thank you for the recipe! Will give it a try this year. I have already worked the soil and added bone meal. Would adding this, be an overkill? Thank you!
Hello Inna-
Bone meal is a good slow-release source for calcium and phosphorus, with some nitrogen value. Depending on how much bone meal you have applied, you might cut the amount of lime in half or less. I would use the rest of the recipe to give the garden a great jump-start.
Do you have a spring elixir for North Florida gardening. Our soil tends to be 6.5 ish ph and, of course, sandy.
Thanks.
Hello Kat-
This is a great elixer for getting a sandy soil ready for a great season. Just follow it using the lime instead of gypsum. The lime is alkaline and will raise the pH while getting the calcium into the soil and available for the plants. You might want to add a bit more than the 100 lbs of compost for the 1000 sq. ft garden to boost the nutrient holding capacity of your sandy soil.
Thanks for the recipe! I just mixed up a batch today. Do I have to wait 2 to 4 weeks to plant?
Hello Madelyn-
I would wait the 2 weeks if possible, but 1 week will probably give enough time to get things energized and started back to life in the soil. Remember that you can always re-apply the mixture once a month when the garden is really growing, just leave out the Borax, as it is only needed once at the beginning of the season.
Let me know how it works!