Need some good tips for vegetable garden

[jolly wattles]

Last year we planted a vegetable garden in our backyard and nothing grew very well. This year I decided to do a home soil test. Results were low on nitrogen, potash and phosphorus.
Over the past year we saved the chickens straw from their coop and dumped it in a corner of their run so theyve broken it down pretty good over the winter.
My question is if I add that to the soil after I till, will that be enough to raise my levels or should I also add fertilizer.

The garden will be 13x13
We have 9 chickens.

 

[oregonkat]

Building a good, friable garden soil can take a little while. I live up in forest country and our soil had zero nitrogen (which surprised the heck out of me, being forest soil!) very low potassium, and phosphorous. I have added huge amounts of compost every year, grown cover crops and added my composted chicken waste.
Adding your chicken waste is a start, (make sure it is nicely broken down first because it is very 'hot') but growing a cover crop, buckwheat is great, and tilling that in is one thing you can do to start building some good soil. If you have access to a horse boarding facility, rabbit keepers, any one with sizable quantities of manure and have a way of transporting it to your garden, that would be an excellent resource for soil building. Craigslist often have folks wanting to get rid of their manure piles.
Build you own compost pile, another great way to build soil but it does take some time.

 

[lazy gardener]

Good soil is a constant work in progress. I am a fan of "No till" gardening. I am in process of turning entire garden into Back To Eden style, but have been doing deep hay mulch for close to 40 years of gardening. I would prep the soil, and test it again, if you have that test kit handy. I add granular fertilizer to my garden, in spite of years of amendment. IMO The plants don't really care where their macro/micro nutrients come from. They simply need these cruicial building blocks to produce good food for you.

Compost will provide a lot of benefit. But, it takes years of good soil management to get to the point where you don't need to add extra amendments.

 

[Titan Farm]

Compost (tons of compost) is a good start and the first step. Green manures, cover crops and organic matter is the next step. Thirdly and you have to build up beneficial microbes in the soil. Without the microbes youll be wasting time, money and nutrients.
Granular or powdered fertilizers (organic and to a point non-organic), compost, cover crops, green manures etc. All need microbes to break them down before the plant can use them.

Now as you building your soil feed your plants with teas, and nutrients that have been oxygenate and broken down by microbes. Also use nutrients that contains sugars and carbs, microbes love sugars and it helps build up the microbes in your soil.

Also, when you pull weeds in your garden, don't put them in a compost pile just let the break down right there in the garden. It help build up the soil faster and youll be feeding the microbes ect. that are in the garden.

 

[Titan Farm]

Almost forgot..
If your water contains chlorine, chloramine or salt, filter the water or collect and use rain water. Chlorine / chloramine can kill any life you will build in your soil and salts are bad for plants.

 

[elaineinspain]

Sounds like no till garden of eden style , or raised beds would be the most beneficial for you. This way it doesn't matter what sort of earth you have if you fill your raised beds with home made compost and well composted manure and chicken litter you know you're growing in a good medium. There is more to good soil than NPK. Also mulch mulch mulch. And diluted human urine is a fantastic complete fertiliser. Dilute it 1 part urine 5 parts water minimum, and don't fertilise with this 2 weeks prior to harvesting.

 

[jolly wattles]

Thank you everybody for the advice . Sounds like this is going to be some work over periods of time.

 

[jolly wattles]

Almost forgot..
If your water contains chlorine, chloramine or salt, filter the water or collect and use rain water. Chlorine / chloramine can kill any life you will build in your soil and salts are bad for plants.

We use well water.