Home

<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Melanie Munk, Features Editor munk@heraldnet.com   Published: Thursday, May 22, 2008 Nuts and bolts: Home and Garden briefs Tour a local treasure: The Evergreen Arboretum and Gardens of Everett will offer docent-led tours at 2 p.m. every Saturday June 28 through Sept. 6, rain or shine. Tours are available by appointment for groups and other days and times. Write contactus@evergreenarboretum.com, call 425-257-8597 or see www.evergreenarboretum.com. Self-guided tour hours are dawn to dusk at 145 Alverson Blvd. off Marine View Drive in Everett. Gardeners might also tour the arboretum during Everett Gardens of Merit, a self-guided residential tour of gardens from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 28. Tickets are $10 for the event, held in conjunction with the arboretum's annual plant sale from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., also at the arboretum. Your plants are what they eat: Don't feed your plants without considering how rich their food is. Urea, for example, is the fertilizer equivalent of a chocolate bar, a rich food, rich enough so that one cup could kill a rose bush. Near the other extreme might be bone meal, the unbuttered popcorn of fertilizers, providing nourishment but nothing to get fat on. Whether a fertilizer is organic or synthetic, the label on the bag or carton spells out clearly just how rich it is. Although plants require at least 15 elements for health, three are needed in especially large amounts, and they are nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Take a look at a fertilizer label and you will see three numbers prominently displayed. Those numbers represent the percentages of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, in that order, "NPK" in gardening jargon. Home testing soil kits can tell you what nutrients your soil needs. Barring a soil test, you could merely replenish your soil with nitrogen each year. Nitrogen is the element needed by plants in greatest amounts, especially in the vegetable garden, and also is the plant food most easily lost from the soil. Besides what you carry off with the harvest, nitrogen can waft off as a gas or be washed through the soil by rain. Most soils need about two-tenths of a pound of actual nitrogen per 100 square feet to replenish annual losses. For organic feeding, you could use about three pounds of soybean meal (which is 7 percent nitrogen), but this same amount of actual nitrogen could also be supplied by, for example, 2 pounds of 10-10-10 or 1/2 pound of urea (46 percent nitrogen). The reasons we can often ignore phosphorous and potassium in computing fertilizer needs are threefold. First, many soils contain great reserves of these nutrients. Second, annually enriching a soil with abundant quantities of compost, leaf mold, straw and other organic materials helps release these minerals from the soil. What's more, these organic materials contain phosphorous and potassium, as well as a slew of other nutrients needed in small but important amounts. One of the least concentrated plant foods, compost, is also the best. A layer an inch or two inch deep spread over the ground should furnish all the food your plants need for a year. It also supplies bulk for aeration and moisture retention, plus other substances that keep roots happy and healthy. Herald staff and Associated Press

1. Man blackmailed ex-girlfriend with nude pictures, police say 2. Snohomish motorcyclist dies in collision with pickup 3. Police looking for man who held up Everett pharmacy 4. Friends plan auction, hope to save woman's home 5. Sheriff warns of Camano Island burglar 6. Arlington private school principal charged with child rape 7. 400 open houses across the county this weekend 8. Man guilty for posing as trooper 9. Cama Beach cabins a quiet, cozy delight 10. LITTLE LEAGUE: Mill Creek reaches state semifinals 2 - Top 10 Stories Most Talked about 3 - Top 10 Stories Most Emailed

• A Seattle SuperSonics' original: Henry Akin • A matter of faith • Late rally, trick play get Vikings victory • Mill Creek advance to finals Team rallies to beat Bainbridge Island 4-3 • Try for Olympics highlights Games' debut • Proper ball position important to set up • Sports Briefs • Richmond Little League at state majors tournament • Fewer sports fields could go into Hamlin Park • Arlington Fly-In marks 40th anniversary this year • Melody Biringer a wide-ranging entrepreneur • County home market offers low rates, lower prices, wide variety of prope ... • Good investments may be boring but profitable • Fryelands industrial park growing in Monroe • Out of the Blue Aviation expands flight training • Paul Allen’s rare Flying Heritage Collection becomes latest aviation att ... • Warbird's history keeper