The Daily Alaska empire., 1941-05-09

in general. Today she discusses
 fertilizers and then tells how
 tC make good lawn.)
 | Let us take our soil and see what it contains and what it needs to make it suitable for growing plants. J. P. Anderson tested soils in and around Juneau number of years ago and found them all to be acid ] in varying proportions. While there are some plants that demand an acid soil, notably the Heathers, azaleas and their kin. most plants prefer a neutral to slightly acid soil
 Our miskeg soil is acid and com- posed of decaying vegetable mat ter. To make it suitable for gar dens, coarse sandy or gravelly soil should be added to improve it's i physical composition and lime added for Sweetener. On the other | hand eravelly river soil or glacier 1 silt is improved with the addition of humus. Humus is decayed vege- table matter that has decomposed far enough to loose it's original structure and to become incorpor- ated with the soil mass This can be muskeg soil, manure well rot ted or any well decayed vegetable matter. Soil with a good texture or l feel. not sticky or gummy. that will allow water to pass through It slowly, but not too slowly, that is easily crumbled in the hand, IS said to be friable. If you can say your soil is friable, I'd say you had it in pretty good shape.
 Fertilizer Necessary
 Most soils have all the natural elements necessary for plant life except nitrogen, phosphorus and potash. Tn our moist climate ferti- li2er is more necessary than in the States. Rain tends to leach it out, SO instead of one or two applica- tions a season, it is better to add small quantities more frequently.
 or these three clements, nitrogen is the most important, the one that teaches out the quickest and the one most liable to burn a plant if it comes in contact with it. Nitro 1 gen contributes especially to the growth of foliage and stem. If your plants look dwarfed and with poor foliage it MIGHT be caused by lack of nitrogen. Lawns should have plenty of nitrogen for best growth.
 Phosphorus develops flowers and fruits. Superphosphate is a concen- trated, easily assimulated source of phosphorus. The seaweed as fer tilizer contains nitrogen, som e ! phosphorus and a little potash; the addition of superphosphate makes a well balanced fertilizer.
 A local man uses the following i formula successfully He puts a layer of seaweed, then one of super ! phosphate and then a little soil and continues this layering until i his seaWeed is used up. Six feet of seaweed will rot down to six ] inches. You can add seaWeed to l your garden any time you can get l it, although fall would probably be the best time and use it as a Win- ter mulch. Do not confuse seaWeed with kelp. The seaweed I refer to is the brown masses with the bladder-like pods on them, that Kelp is that large, brown, onion- like plant with the long brown, ribbon-like streamers It is also good but usually not available in any great quantities near Juneau. You will have to pick the rocks, barnacles and other crustaceans oof the seaweed as you seldom find it. very clean.
 Potash in duces strong root growth. This would be more valu-i able in a vegetable garden, per haps, for root crops, but a flower garden must have strong roots too.
 Types of Fertilizers
 There are, roughly speaking, two types of fertilizers: chemical ferti- lizers and natural fertilizers. Chem ical fertilizers usually come mixed in certain proportions for different crops. Or you can buy any of the three elements separately For gen. eral garden purposes here, some thing near silly would be a good mixture. That is, a fertilizer con- taining five parts of nitrogen, II parts of phosphorus and seven parts of potash. There are many brands of fertilizer on the market l to choose from.
 Bone meal is a slow-acting fer tilizer Raw bone meal contains more uitropap than tba rtaa n,ad