p-fertilizer-msg - 12/23/06
Use and composition of period fertilizers.
NOTE: See also the files: fish-msg, p-agriculture-bib, p-agriculture-msg, gardening-bks-bib, gardens-msg, A-Med-Garden-art, gardening-bib.
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This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.
This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org
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Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous
Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 13:10:53 +0100
From: Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] planting fish
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Am Dienstag, 13. Dezember 2005 08:17 schrieb Stefan li Rous:
> Urtatim commented:
>>> Salmon is vegetarian?????
>
> My thoughts exactly. Last time i looked, one could not plant a fish
> in a garden (unless it had a pond)
> <<<
>
> Well, yes you can. It's just that the yield is usually zero, at least
> as far as new fish is concerned.
>
> Wasn't one of the tricks that the American Natives taught the
> European immigrants to put a fish in with the maize seed when they
> planted it? Or is that another one of those urban legends?
I don't know if it was the Indians, but fish can be used as fertilizer on bad
soil and was, in New England. Before railway transportation, some
Scandinavian communities did that, too. I'm told it stinks to high heaven,
but then, in North Germany they used peat sods enriched over the winter with
cattle urine and manure. I don't know which I'd prefer.
Giano
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 14:29:14 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] planting fish
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Using fish, seaweed, manure or other decaying organic matter as fertilizer
started sometime in the late Neolithic and is a common practice in many
agrarian societies. The particular organic matter depends on what is most
available. Even today, we use fertilizers based on fish, seaweed, manure
and peat. The primary difference is we process the basic ingredients into
to forms that are easier to use and may produce greater benefit faster.
Fertilization reduces the need to move agrarian communities to new farmland,
as occurs with slash and burn practices, and permits the growth of large
stable societies.
For the Eastern tribes, fish was a readily available fertilizer, so fish got
planted with the seeds. An additional point is it was common practice to
plant maize, squash and beans together in mounds where the plants could
support each other physically and nutritionally. The method is referred to
as the Three Sisters and is a forerunner to today's methods of companion
planting.
And just to assure you that fish fertilizer is not a legend, here is an
excerpt from a letter from one E.W. of Plymouth to a friend in London:
"We set the last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn, and sowed some six
acres of barley and peas, and according to the manner of the Indians, we
manured our ground with herrings or rather shads, which we have in great
abundance...".
"A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceeding of the English
Plantation Settled at Plymouth", London, 1622.
Bear
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 21:21:25 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] planting fish
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
> Fish is the original organic fertilizer, very good for almost all
> crops. Rich in amino acids and B vitamins.
> Selene
A little better reason is that fish (and seaweed) produce a fair amount of
nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus when the decay.
Bear
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 21:55:13 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] planting fish
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
> You mention that "even today we use fertilizers based on fish,
> seaweed...". Is this in the industrial countries like the U.S. or
> do you just mean in the third-world and developing countries?
>
> Stefan
Organic fertilizers are specialty items commonly used by specialty or
organic farmers. For the average business, lower cost chemical
fertilizers are the ticket.
Most third world countries use either chemical fertilizers or some form of
dung. The reason the Eastern Amerinds used fish was that they had digging
sticks rather than plows. It is difficult to work dung into the soil
without a plow. BTW, the plow came into use around 3000 BCE and is the
invention that marks the beginning of extensive use of fertilizers.
Bear
<the end>