Jen's favorite picks for growing your best garden. The following amendments are stocked at Steller Botanicals for my and your gardens.

Best is to do a complete soil test through a lab every few years and then add amendments based precisely on what your soil needs. I will create a future post about soil testing.

It is impossible to import garden amendments without relying on mining and global transport in some form. As will all decisions in life there is some give and take, having to make one's best choices from what one knows.

Potting Soil: Peat is mined in Interior Alaska and Canada and travels long distances. Coconut coir is more sustainable option in that you are taking away ancient soil but you are instead transporting the coir from its tropical sources to our northern gardens. Over the years I have tried to stay away from peat and actually prefer coir but it takes some getting used to the different media, coir once it starts to dry out can dry out much more quickly than peat leaving you with desiccated plants. There are lots of interesting blends out there, I am still trying to iron out the elusive perfect mix.

When growing herbs like thyme, rosemary, echinacea or many plants closer to their wild form they much prefer a better drained medium than potting soil, so mixing at least 50% sand in will help with drainage and plant growth.

FERTILIZING TIPS:

Living in the rainforest means that our soils are soggy, the rain leaches nutrients out of our soils quickly. We suggest that you apply fertilizers when you plant your garden and then again around the 4th of July. It depends on the type of fertilizer you are applying as to when it will be released and how long it will last. Liquids are available immediately while powders will take longer to be taken up by plants and granular fertilizers will take even longer. Compost depends on the quality. In general, after about a month suspect that your fertilizer has been used up.

Scatter amendments onto your soil (watch the wind) and then shallowly dig them in or you can add amendments directly to transplanting holes. If adding to transplant holes it is a good idea to dig the amendments into a wider area than just directly the hole you are planting in as you want your plant's roots to extend farther afield.

You don't need to use ALL of the fertilizers, pick a Nitrogen type for greens and brassicas and a phosphorus rich one for root crops and you will be off to a good start.
If you have your own compost or are able to get seaweed off the beach then you will have your own bounty to apply. We save animal bones and burn them in our woodstove during the winter and then add that into our soil with the assumption we are adding phosphorus that way.

We watch for signs of leaves yellowing even slightly to prompt us to apply a top dressing of compost or fertilizer again during the season (usually early July).

Vermipost: if you can keep your own worms then you will have black gold. See my blog on vermiposting for lessons I have learned and how to keep worms in Alaska. Mixing about 20% vermipost into potted plants or adding a handful into transplanting holes in your garden gives your plants amazing food. If you aren't able to make your own vermipost Steller Botanicals carries commercially made vermipost.

5-5-3 Concentrates Fertilizer with Mycorrhizae: this is one of my favorite commercial fertilizers. Application rate is 1 lb powder (this is a fine powder) per 45 square feet. 5-5-3 contains mychorrhize which benefits trees, perennials and many crops we grow in our garden. Beets, Spinach, Chard, Purslane, Amaranth and Brassica crops do not form mycorrhizal relationships so there is no benefit of mycorrhizae to these.