Pastures
- Those keeping sheep cattle, especially milk producing animals, need to keep tabs on their pasture’s magnesium content, especially during cool weather growth.
- Magnesium levels are lower in grasses during cool weather growth. The plant’s high moisture content causes low uptake of nutrients.
- Sheep and Cattle need a continuous supply of magnesium supplement, because their systems don’t have access to magnesium stored in their bones.
- Providing a supplement of Magnesium Sulfate or Magnesium Oxide can help your animals stay healthy while you make sure their pasture is providing adequate nutrition.
- Test your pasture’s soil to determine which nutrients are depleted. This way you can make informed decisions when it comes to soil amendments.
The Co-Op has soil testing kits for sale at both locations.
For a proper sample:
- Dig a hole 6 inches deep
- Collect soil uniformly think from top to bottom along the edge of the hole
- Collect samples from several locations around your pasture
- Mix samples in a clean bucket
- Spread the mixed samples on clean baking pan for a day to air dry
- Discard stones, sticks, insects, and other debris
- Once dry, follow the instructions on the sample kits to test your soil
Gardens
In the Maritime Pacific Northwest, we get a lot of rain. For this reason, our soils are almost always depleted of trace minerals, especially calcium.
For starting a new garden area that have never been amended or fertilized, assume the area is needs additional calcium and magnesium:
- Spread 3 parts Agricultural Lime to 1 part Magnesium Sulfate at a rate of 50 pounds per 1000 square feet
- Be careful not to over-lime. Soils completely saturated with calcium and magnesium are unable to hold other nutrients.
Throughout the growing treat your garden soils every three months or so, during vigorous plant growth, with an appropriate fertilizer mix.
If you use the following recipe, you will continue to replace much needed nutrients, and you shouldn’t have to worry about the nutritional quality of your soil:
- 4 parts cottonseed meal or soybean meal
- ½ part lime and magnesium sulfate mixture (the one used to initially treat the area
- ½ part phosphate rock or bone meal
- ½ part kelp meal
