The Garden Fertilizer That Changes Everything - Alfalfa Pellets (Quick Garlic Planting Guide)

Welcome to the Rustic Garden Homestead. This video is not about planting garlic, although I'm going to do some planting and use that as the example. It's about using alfalfa pellets in the garden. It's a wonderful organic granular fertilizer. I'm going to give you three reasons why you should use it in your garden, and I think you'll be sold on replacing all your other organic fertilizers with inexpensive alfalfa pellets. Alfalfa pellets really do make a wonderful organic granular fertilizer and you can really replace all the other organic granulars with this. First thing, NP and K value of alfalfa pellets, about a 3-1-2. 3% nitrogen, 1% phosphorus, 2% potassium. 3-1-2 NP and K. They also contain magnesium, sulfur, and calcium, the second tier macronutrients your plants need. They just don't need a lot of it. But again, alfalfa will give you nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, sulfur, and magnesium. Plus it has, I don't know, at least Half a dozen minerals and vitamins in there but it also has one thing your other organic granular fertilizers don't have and that's a growth hormone that helps stimulate root growth on your plants. It's called triactinol. it's beautiful in the sense that you don't have to do anything you just put this down use it as your organic granular and the growth hormone will incorporate itself into the soil it will help stimulate the root growth of your plant and you get a stronger plant it's scientifically proven it's there it's actually um it's a fatty acid you know without getting too technical what does that mean that when this is steamed and pressed The growth hormone stays intact. It's not destroyed by processing. So when you bring it to your garden, as this breaks down, the triactinol is slowly released into the bed and your plants do benefit from that. So they're a good source of nutrients for your plants. they have a growth hormone second reason third reason is it's only about 20 to 25 dollars for a 40 pound bag of pelleted alfalfa i get mine at tractor supply store that goes really a long way much less expensive than buying those three pound five pound bags for 15 or 20 dollars you get 40 for about you know twenty twenty five dollars now these are in pelleted form a lot of people say aren't animals gonna come in and eat these i've never had that happen to any noticeable degree in over 10 years once you add water to these we're going to drop some in water and we'll take a look at these at the end of the video it just breaks down into pretty much it looks like sawdust And therefore, it gets incorporated into your soil. Animals leave it alone. So you can put this out, you know, the night before it rains or just water it in like I'm going to do today. How much do you put down? I heavily hand it, and I have plenty of videos on this. I'm not going to go into great detail for planting the garlic because I just did a video on it, I think, 10 days ago. Check out the linked videos. You're just going to put the alfalfa down, something like this. Let's move this over here. And that's plenty. to set up the bed once you have it across the surface just mix it in like that just so that it has some good contact this is going to sit here you know for four or five months here in maryland zone seven and it will get broken down by microbes earthworms mycorrhizal fungi it's going to add to the structure of the soil but really add to the life of the soil more importantly wonderful you know reason to use it and again it's really really inexpensive that's all i do to set it up This is starting to break up. You can see a little down further how it's starting to flake up. By the time we're done, that will be totally broken up. Next, let's put down the garlic real quick. What I'm planting today is hardneck garlic. This is a red chestnut. And it has a hard stem right down the middle. That's how you know it's hard neck garlic. When you try and push on it, it's like a stick. And again, the video that I'm linking will go into more detail. And it gives you a few more steps that you don't have to use if you're on a budget or you just don't have the time for it. What I'm doing today, bare minimum works for garlic every time. So you break the bulb down into cloves and I've placed the cloves between four and eight inches apart, somewhere between 10 and 20 centimeters. If it's a bigger clove, Something this size, about five or six inches apart, works pretty well. Ten centimeters, twelve and a half centimeters. Bigger cloves, more space, or bigger bulbs if they're going to turn into bigger bulbs. A clove turns into a bulb. You, you know, you can go up to eight inches, but you don't have to go beyond that. This is going to work, especially for this little raised bed, grown garlic in here for many years. Once you have the spacing out here, Maryland zone seven, we're pushing this down about two inches. The bottom is where the little root hairs are. The point is the top, but you don't even have to worry about that. Just on its side, the garlic figures it out and two to three inches deep, five to seven and a half centimeters. perfect for Maryland zone 7. In my other videos I talk about mulching and you can mulch if you want to but all we're doing now is getting these in about four to six weeks before your ground freezes your hardneck garlic needs a good six to eight weeks if not a bit more of a cold period so that it gets the signal to be to go from these single cloves that i'm doing and form into a large bulb If you don't give them the cold hours they need you end up getting a garlic pearl which is basically this. It just pretty much looks like how you put it into the ground. Having that eight weeks of cold gives the garlic clove the signal to divide and become a wonderful bulb come spring. Follow me and I'll show you how to take care of these in the spring. Now that everything's down about two to three inches we're just going to cover it over. I'm going to water everything in As you're, you know, progressing towards late fall, early winter, you really don't have to water a whole lot. Your only goal now is for the garlic to establish wonderful roots, set up, get the cold hours, and come spring, we worry about all the green growth. If any green growth happens, Between now, you know, and your heavy freezes, don't worry about it. Just let it be. I have room if I wanted to put down, you know, an inch of mulch or something. You can do that. You can do that to kind of insulate the soil if you're in a really cold area. If you want, garlic is really hardy. And sometimes people do it to keep moisture in here. So with that one, two, three inches, you know, two and a half, seven and a half centimeters, everything stays moist. Things tend to break down a little bit more quickly. Worms have a field day, so the mulch can help with that. But this is all you have to do, and you're gonna get a wonderful, large crop, bigger bulbs of garlic, I think, by using the alfalfa pellets. Now, real quick, let me pull this back up. You can see what's happening. You know, this is starting to all break down, and that's what's gonna happen. This is just gonna break down into, you know, this little sawdust-like pile. Microbes and worms will break it down. Four or five months, it'll be incorporated into your soil. Also, in four or five months, it'll be broken down. Your plant will be able to absorb a lot of the nutrients that are in there, the N, P, and K. So the benefit of alfalfa, number one, supplies N, P, and K nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Supplies second tier nutrients, calcium, sulfur, I'm going to go for magnesium. Half a dozen or more minerals and vitamins, has a growth hormone triacontanol, which is scientifically proven, it's present, it will help the plant grow, help stimulate root growth, and it's only $40, I'm sorry, it's only $20 to $25 for a 40 pound bag, which goes a long way. Three great reasons to switch over to using alfalfa pellets in your garden. It can replace any organic granular fertilizer. You're still going to want water-soluble fertilizers for reasons I'll show you in the spring if you want to follow me. If you feel like you didn't put enough down Sprinkle down some more alfalfa if you want. Throw some mulch on it. You're set up. You've got the benefits of alfalfa and you've saved yourself some money. Thanks so much for watching. Please check out my seed shop at therustygarden.com and please check out the linked videos. A lot more on planting garlic.