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Rapid increase in fertility needed.

 
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Hello all. I have tried for the past two years to grow fall cabbage. I have failed. I guess a lack of fertility after a summer of heavy feeders is to blame. I would like advice on how to increase fertility enough to grow a healthy crop of cabbage. My first thought is comfrey tea and that may be correct. I am interested in hearing what the permies community thinks though.
Luckily I have time to grow some fall crops and still plant winter cover.
Thanks!
 
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Yes, probably comfrey tea would definitely help.

Other choices that could also help would be compost tea and a layer of compost.

Do you use wood chips? If not those will help but at a slower rate.

I am hoping you will get happy fall cabbages.
 
Scott Stiller
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Thank you Anne. I hadn’t considered compost tea but will try it as well. I’m currently in a chop and drop mode with veggies that are done.
I no longer have access to wood chips but that’s good advice. My large compost piles are now growing sweet potatoes but when they’re finished I’ll use it instead of wood chips.
 
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It’s not cabbage, but I’ve found tree collards to be infinitely easier and more productive brassicas, and the crunchy leaf veins provide a similar texture and purple color.
 
Scott Stiller
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Thanks Ben, I’d forgotten about those. I used to grow them but they died after few years.
 
Ben Zumeta
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These beasts are swallowing trellises, and to the OP’s question, make prolific biomass for bacteria food (what cabbage wants) and chop and drop mulch.
D11B2A12-1D48-4EFF-9514-66E40E841BA8.jpeg
[Thumbnail for D11B2A12-1D48-4EFF-9514-66E40E841BA8.jpeg]
Those are 10ft posts for scale
 
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IIRC cabbages have different fungal requirements than most other crops, meaning they can do well with a bacterial dominated compost tea. That is, more urine or manure and less wood chips and dry leaves.

Any organic mulch should help, as long as pH keeps over 6.
 
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Abraham Palma wrote:IIRC cabbages have different fungal requirements than most other crops, meaning they can do well with a bacterial dominated compost tea. That is, more urine or manure and less wood chips and dry leaves.

Any organic mulch should help, as long as pH keeps over 6.



I believe that you are correct. I recall reading that Brassicas enjoy a bacteria-rich soil and aren't so dependent (unlike most woodland species, such as strawberries or trees) on fungal associations.

My suggestion would be that you try to source a large amount of organic matter for your growing area and incorporate it into the soil - either by tilling it in (I think tilling, once, is justified if it dramatically improves the soil but I do disagree with disturbing the soil in general) or by using it as a thick mulch and planting into it. If there are livestock farms nearby, cow manure/muck would be ideal. Otherwise, the comfrey leaves, straw bedding from stables, compost, leaves + grass clippings, etc.
 
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FWIW,   I can't grow a cabbage to save my life,  same with beets.   Both claimed to be "easy" lol.   I've had my soil tested this year, and it came back with really great numbers.   All my nutrients are above optimal,  so it's not a "fertilization" problem per se.    Maybe it's my soil type.   Maybe it's my gardening habits (mulch and let rain water things 90% of the year).   Maybe I'm not trying the right varieties.   Maybe there is a micronutrient that wasn't included in the soil test results.   Just tossing out ideas to broaden the scope beyond one possible solution.  
 
Scott Stiller
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All of these replies are greatly appreciated!
After reading your thoughts I’m wondering if a lack of bacterial driven fertilizer is the problem.
Here’s the thing about how I practice permaculture. All of my gardens are tree guilds and have been built with with fungal associations in mind. I do spot use of comfrey and grass clipping tea if a specific plant needs a boost. I also use fresh grass clippings as mulch around all veggies in summer.
In fall all grass clippings and leaves go into my compost piles for the next planting season. All comfrey gets dehydrated into powder and stored until the next spring. I add the powder to my homemade potting mix in hopes of a small boost. There’s a thread about this somewhere here.
I always assumed everything was in order because kale grows so easily here. Maybe it’s not. I’ll be changing things up a bit this year in hopes of growing a nice cabbage crop!
Thanks for all of your help and I’ll happily take any other advice offered!
 
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Kale is the easiest crop to grow in the cabbage family. It's closest to being wild, so not a good metric to tell if cabbage will also do well.

Chop-and-drop can be an excellent way to feed your garden next year, but I wouldn't count on the chopped vegetable matter composting fast enough to feed a fall crop after being cut in summer. I suspect that is a significant part of your problem. The heavy feeders have drained the nutrients, and the chop-and-drop will renew them if you let them decompose and plant next year.

If you need to plant again in fall, I recommend adding some thoroughly-decomposed compost to the soil after harvesting the heavy feeders.
 
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I have been testing feeding plants and soil microbes with fresh leaf soup and had good results so far. Healthy soft leaves are disintegrated but minimally decomposed are fed directly to the soil in a solution form. In this case, plant roots can uptake some of the nutrients directly or be fed indirectly through soil microbes. The soup has a more balanced C:N ratio to avoid the depleting of soil OM due to excess nitrogen. It's fast acting and better be complemented with a layer of mulch which release nutrients slowly and protect soil structure.

I briefly mentioned this method in the big sunchoke thread but had made modifications since then. For leaves, anything healthy and soft will work and mixed leaves are better than single kind. I avoid using leaves on the same family as the target plant. Also make sure it is well diluted as you don't want to cook the roots. Also avoid direct contact with plant stems.

I typically prep and use within 48 hours, the solution is green, slightly foamy and has no bad odor. If you want to do a quick test, just use a blender. I use at the ratio of 1g leaf per liter of water or equivalent to 1 paki mulberry leaf or 2 sunchoke leaves in a gallon.

I fed the indoor plants/seedings in depleted potting mix/ in ground plants and they are all thriving. The solution is slightly high in nitrogen so my plants tend to get a bit more vegetative growth. But for leaf crop it should be ideal. I haven't grown cabbage before and I am trying napa this year with the new method.

Edited to add:
Reminder: do not use leaf soup in rich soil already have lots of microbial activity since the heat generated and lack of oxygen will kill off the plants quickly.

What I found it most useful was for improving compacted poor soil. I carried out controlled experiments and had positive results.  Between Aug and Sept 2022, I picked three adjacent plots 4 yards x8 yards each, one got 6 treatments of 2lbs of leaves disintegrated in 60 gallons of water, 2nd plot got the same amount of leaves and water but as chop-and-drop, the third plot got water only. Plants grew taller in the leaf soup plot and went to seed early compared to the other two. The effect continued till the next spring and the experimental plot greened up earlier. So far I had only visual observation but waiting on more data to quantify somewhat.
 
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Hey Scott.

I know nothing about growing cabbages.

I grew a cabbage this year though! I have about six more that seem like they might ball up as well.

I harvested the one today, maybe a little early? or maybe really late... I dunno, but it's quite small. I'm turning it into a jar of sauerkraut over the next two weeks.

It's my first cabbage I've ever had successfully ball up. The outer six layers were completely snail ridden. The insides were pristine.

I think I direct seeded it... but it could have been a start. Anyway it's been in the ground for a long time now, probably since February?

They weren't growing super well for a long time, then I applied a few rounds of mostly dandelion tea that fermented in a closed glass jar for about two weeks or more. Then they really perked up and started growing like cabbages. That happened in late June or July I think. I pulled a bunch of dandelions that were growing in one of my gravel lots. Tried to get as much of the root as possible. Smelled horrendously wonderful. Rich and powerful and full of life. Had some white mold on top, but I read not to worry about that. The smell stuck to my fingers for two days. I recommend cutting your nails before you apply this kind of thing.

I also haven't watered them since they were probably a week old or so. Just growing in my two-three year old hugel beds, mulched with rice husks and weeds, hanging out beside some towering Jerusalem artichokes and now starting to get shaded out by my vigorous kabocha vine that's taking over that entire corner of the garden (but not flowering much at all yet...)

So there you go. I grew a cabbage, maybe you can grow more!
 
Scott Stiller
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I’m really intrigued by the large amount of leaf, weed, and compost teas on this thread. Do we need a fertilizer tea forum?
May suggested not using leaves from the family of plants that need the tea. My thinking has always been opposite of that. I would use the same family hoping to replace what the other plants had taken. I’m really enjoying different viewpoints!
Big congratulations on your newly harvested cabbage L. I’m lucky that the outside of my cabbage leaves are rarely touched by insects. When young they’re pretty tasty too! I’m currently looking at a cabbage I direct seeded eleven months ago. I think it’s about to form a head? How weird is that?
 
May Lotito
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It's important to find out the cause of the problem than just treating the symptoms. I experienced the decline in fertility and deterioration of soil structure near mid to late summer last year. When the squash crops were finally killed by bugs and powdery mildew, I sowed radish seeds and the seedings were stunted for a few weeks before they thrived again. Apart from weather issues, I feel the fertility fluctuation has to do with the change of different types of organic matters in the soil.

There are three types of OMs: the very dead/inactive, the dead/active and the living. When plant residues decompose or when one tills in lots of compost, these dead/active OM feed the microbes to feed the plants eventually. When temperature rises, the process speeds up and the initial compost will largely be consumed by summer time. But at the same time, the level of living roots and microbes go up. This is a normal and natural process. The problem is, if the soil doesn't have a good amount of the very dead/inactive OM to hold soil structure and moisture, this reduction in active OM will have a large impact and the situation won't relieve until the living roots decompose into active OM.

Good managements that increase fertility all have to do with soil OM and microbes:
Leaving roots in soil
No excess nitrogen to burn up soil carbon
Keep soil covered with mulch

I paid attention to this issue and changed my practice accordingly this year and so far my garden is thriving even in a D3 extreme drought. I watered too but there's something more than extra water can explain.

As for the plant family in leaf soup. That's for reducing the risk of plant disease transmitted through sap especially in the case of tomato.
 
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Scott Stiller wrote:

I’m currently looking at a cabbage I direct seeded eleven months ago. I think it’s about to form a head? How weird is that?

I had one that did nothing all last summer and then suddenly headed up in the fall. My feeling was that it was being outcompeted and shaded by too many other plants. My other one that did well, was outcompeted/shaded by some bush beans in the summer, but once they died, the cabbage formed the biggest head I've ever had.

That said, no one's mentioned pH - cabbage don't like it as acidic as things like tomatoes. I always plant them with some crushed eggshell spread on the top of the soil. This may not be the big issue, but it might be one more little thing that will help them out.
 
Scott Stiller
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I hadn’t considered PH. The soil here is so acidic that blueberries do great without help.
 
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This is my first year of successfully growing cabbage and I think water was the key.  The bed they grew in was the very first bed I built several years ago. When I started devoting the majority of my time to the garden in 2020, I used a mulch of shredded leaves and grew a grew an okay crop of potatoes.  When it came time to spread what compost I had, there wasn't enough for that bed and I assumed that the leaf mulch would contribute to the fertility. Last year I grew beans in that bed and they did okay.  Compost pile was growing pumpkins last fall and didn't get applied to the beds.   This year I did my normal snow peas on the end and planted cabbage in the rest of the bed.  Snow peas did awesome but the cabbage seemed to languish.   I never got around to mulching this spring and noticed the cabbage bed had cracks in the soil.  From that point I began watering deeply twice a week when it was dry and they perked up and started growing.  

Someone else mentioned beets.  I planted six short rows: two in one bed and four in another.  Well those two rows took off like gangbusters and have been pulled and pickled for over a month. I've let the other bed go in hopes that the beets would amount to something but they're about to be pulled.  I'll end up with a few for eating,  but quite a disappointment.  I'm leaning towards the water issue as well with that bed but think it's more of a fertility issue.  

This fall my focus will be on adding organic matter to all my beds to increase fertility and hopefully help with water retention.   Since each of my beds were filled with whatever I had in hand or could scrounge up, soil quality varies in each and I've been keeping notes this year which let's me know which beds need more help.
 
Scott Stiller
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Thanks Michelle, sometimes the smallest things make the most difference. The bed that I’ve tried to grow cabbage in before is one of the driest I have. After I retired I grew micro greens for a local farm and had access to all the leftover potting soil I wanted. It all went to build up this bed. I would do it again but would take more time to make sure water retention was much better.
 
Jay Angler
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Scott Stiller wrote:After I retired I grew micro greens for a local farm and had access to all the leftover potting soil I wanted. It all went to build up this bed. I would do it again but would take more time to make sure water retention was much better.

Is the potting soil short on microbes and mycorrhiza?  Could you add a worm/composting tower to the center of that bed? Worms poop our a lot of microbes. Have you tried making a little compost tea with soil you know is good? Watering with that might help also.

As a general rule, cole family crops are heavy feeders - they do love a compost-rich soil!
 
Scott Stiller
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That’s good thinking Jay. This is probably my only bed that’s low on fungal activity due to how well it drains.
I made sure to water my one cabbage a little extra today after reading May’s post.
All of your suggestions are greatly appreciated!
 
Ben Zumeta
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Compost teas and extracts are tactics I have been using a lot of this spring and summer on my garden and the 4-5acres of food forest I am getting established. I have put out several hundred gallons of each at this point, on both good garden soil and some of the toughest hillside serpentine-rocky-clay dirt I can imagine growing anything in. I adjust the recipe to select for more fungi dominance in what I make for trees, and for bacteria for brassicas. Veggies and annuals I go for a balance.

Compost extracts get used as a soil drench that adds the highest microbial diversity to the soil. I just run water to fill a 55gal drum through 1-2gal of compost and forest leaf mold in a 400micron mesh bag, massaging the compost to get the microbes into suspension, then aerate/mix with a bubble snake for 2hrs. This can go on full strength or diluted.

Compost teas’ highly oxygenated environment produces more numerous microbes, but less diverse biota than extracts due to the unnaturally aerobic conditions selecting for microbes that can thrive in it to multiply quickly (Ingham, 2005). This makes compost teas ideal for foliar sprays, as well as great for soil drenching. I spray at full strength with a tea on the younger/bacterial side, as bacteria work best for foliar applications according to Dr Ingham. For this I do the same as with an extract,  but add food like fish hydrolysate (for nitrogen), and/or fish bone meal (for some N but more P and Ca for fruiting plants), or barley (for fungi if using as a drench during fruiting). I also add rock dust at the beginning for microbial habitat, and some kelp at the end of the brew. Foliar/bacterial dominant brews go for 24hrs, for fruiting fungal drenches they go more like 48hrs. Less time the hotter it gets. Quality compost is essential!

More can be found at the TeaLab website and in Dr. Ingham’s work (just search for her name and compost tea for a good paper on it).

 
Scott Stiller
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Excellent advice Ben! I watched Dr Ingham’s videos on YouTube years ago but have forgotten most of it. Thank you for the reminder and this concise, and wonderful post!
 
May Lotito
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Scott Stiller wrote:I’m really intrigued by the large amount of leaf, weed, and compost teas on this thread. Do we need a fertilizer tea forum?
May suggested not using leaves from the family of plants that need the tea. My thinking has always been opposite of that. I would use the same family hoping to replace what the other plants had taken. I’m really enjoying different viewpoints!



Scott, you are right about the nutritional needs. Initially I was thinking the nutrition requirements for different plants are more universal but diseases will be specific so it's from a disease prevention point of view. After another year of experimenting and trying to find more drawbacks of this method, I did see the nutritional value of the source plants affects the health of the recipient plants. Most notably is the nitrogen to sulfur ratio, recipient plants with high S demand will have excess nitrogen building up since the two are synergistic, causing an brief outbreak in aphids. If I add external sulfur source (Epson salt MgSO4, plants don't have signs of Mg or Ca deficiency) to the tea, recipient plants don't have aphids anymore and respond even stronger. Similarly, sickly looking plants of the same family that have imbalanced nutritient don't help either.

I am looking at the S deficiency state of my whole yard and have clear result from banded application of Epson salt on a spot. Plants are always stunted there and I have tried lime, wood ash and nitrogen fertilizer without any effect. Bands receiving sulfur are greener after a few week. Soil test done years ago did show almost everything is low but I didn't realize one single element is so critical.  
 
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Cabbage and the other brassicas are what old-timers called "lazy crops"....which means they like everything handed to them on a silver platter in abundance, so to speak....water and nutrients especially.  Anything that stops or slows their growth such as a dry or soggy spell, a shortfall of nutrients, a partial defoliation from something or other, or a sharp frost, will increase the chances of permanently stunting them and diminishing or preventing a useful yield.  Cauliflower is the most persnickety of the lot, and is often considered a master test of the gardener's art.  My own personal breakthrough with them is urine, diluted four or five parts in water and watered in around them every few days.  This is on top of a diligent program of creating raised beds rich in buried organic matter, compost incorporated, and mulch once new plants are established.  The other important point is the starts.  They must be grown rapidly and in ideal conditions as well.  These crops are sort of the opposite of the permaculture ideal of having plants that are tough, resilient, tolerant of various kinds of neglect and extremes and still capable of producing something useful.
 
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I think that you may be able to create an increase in the natural fertility of the land through earthworks. For me, they have been the one thing (aside from fall leaves and swamp mud) that is not too much of a rat race and that has lead to much greater fertility. Specifically, I have used terracing, which has helped to create moist, sheltered microclimates, because the garden is on a hillside; there are deep trenches at the base of each terrace, which act as swales and soak much more water into the ground than is usually able, keeping the soil moister through dry spells; and the berms help with evaporation by confusing the wind. They are some effort to make but are in general quick to make--a week or so at a relaxed pace should do it for a good area--and will last. I found that it was easiest to dig a contour trench while depositing the soil *uphill* (the opposite of what is typical for swales.) It sounds like it shouldn't work, but the trench does fill up quickly when there is a lot of rain.

For more short term measures, what I have done is to gather into a trench, a lot of fertile hay and leaf material, and bury it under a good amount of soil; then plant when it begins decomposing. It skips the steps of making tea--throw everything together and something will grow! Amaranth, another bacteria-loving plant, was abundant and exuberant from where I did this. Squash treated this way was also decent, but not as happy--they would have much preferred something more fungal. In the latter case there was a trench next to the squash where I kept throwing comfrey leaves, goutweed, grass, etc.
 
Anne Miller
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I don't know about earthworks increasing fertility though what you say about trench composting is a great way to help.

For rapid fertility I would do compost tea.
 
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Heather Staas wrote:
FWIW,   I can't grow a cabbage to save my life,  same with beets.   Both claimed to be "easy" lol.   I've had my soil tested this year, and it came back with really great numbers.   All my nutrients are above optimal,  so it's not a "fertilization" problem per se.    Maybe it's my soil type.   Maybe it's my gardening habits (mulch and let rain water things 90% of the year).   Maybe I'm not trying the right varieties.   Maybe there is a micronutrient that wasn't included in the soil test results.   Just tossing out ideas to broaden the scope beyond one possible solution.  


A thought: beets are in the Amaranthaceae, cabbage in the Brassicaceae. Both of these families are noted for their inability to form arbuscular mycorrhizal associations. Maybe this could be a sign that your soil contains all the necessary nutrients, but tightly bound in the soil rather than freely available. If that was the case, plants whose fungal partners can help them free up the nutrients would do great, but plants without mycorrhiza would struggle. So maybe your inability to grow these two crops isn't a sign of something being wrong per se, but rather of something being right (a fungi-dominated soil that holds on to its nutrients so they're not washed out by the rain)?
 
Maieshe Ljin
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Anne Miller wrote:I don't know about earthworks increasing fertility though what you say about trench composting is a great way to help.



Thank you--I will explain a little further. I remember seeing a talk here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs9XVPHyWWg) that was posted somewhere here on Permies (but I can't find the original topic) and it was talking about how partially anaerobic soil is healthier for plants and soil health by limiting oxidation, thus increasing organic matter. It had a lot on specific cover crops good for that, but someone commented a takeaway that soil should stay more consistently moist in order to be conserved, and this is something I have noticed a lot. I was helping weed lobelia and cup plant to replant from someone's garden, and by the side of their house, under the roof, where two differently angled roof surfaces came together and the water dripped down in greatest quantity, the soil was of particularly excellent blackness and richness, even though no compost had been added in years. In other areas, the soil was of typical valley-soil quality, more dark-grey than black. I have noticed this where I live as well--the garden with the hose (that can often be leaky) and directly under the eaves of the roof, is very dark and fertile even with no nutrients added. Water and nutrition seem to work in tandem in my experience and theoretically.

In the garden, maybe the earthworks can be considered fertigation. Wherever there is a trench or pit, I throw in weeds, sometimes food scraps, and leafy debris, and I am guessing that when the rain comes it dissolves excess nourishment and carries it gently and naturally into the surrounding earth as the water soaks in.
 
Anne Miller
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I think I remember that Ruth Stout was advocating this method of composting.  Though from what old timers have told me the American Indians used fish buried under plants to add fertility.

BTW, there is a PEP BB (Badge Bit) for that:

https://permies.com/wiki/42/98577/Ruth-Stout-style-composting-spots

 
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