https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Dr Mercola and August Dunning discuss the essentials of soil remineralization for nutrient density in your food garden.

Thanks for posting that! Will definitely check into the process.

It would be great to feed your kids the healthiest food from your own garden. In fact I aim to do that for myself, and Im just feeding me.

I did read or hear somewhere that nutrient values in our food is declining due to constant crop growing without mineral replenishment. While perhaps not the best source for mineral variety, all eggshells here get crushed and added to the garden although they can take a long time to decompose.

Dont remember the source, but I read that putting bones under your potatoes will enrich them with calcium. I am vegetarian, but I do have a lot of bones that my dogs chew on.

No dogs, no potatoes but DH does love steak. With my luck, either raccoons or possums would dig them up. I wonder if burying bones is interchangeable with bonemeal application.

For me its an opportunity to recycle bones. I also sometimes gather them all up and cook them down into bone broth--not for me but for them to mix with dry dog food. What's left is soft bones, and they go into the garden. Those racoons will figure out just about anything you do to outsmart them. I forgot and left my new box of cat food with the ring pop lids outside. That coon figured out how to open the cans, and helped himself to a good share of the whole box. He watches me through the window glass to see if Im coming out the door, and he wont leave unless I actually open the door. If he hears the door latch, then he scoots.

I don't get as many raccoons as I used to since it appears my NDN has stopped feeding them cheap sugary cereal at night. We counted 13 at one time which is waaaay too many to be healthy. I do get an occasional visitor to the bird feeder, scarfing up fallen seed. Also have either a raccoon or possum raiding my coffee can of soapy water with drowned JBs in it. Yuck.

JBs?

Japanese beetles. I don't use pesticides but knock them into soapy water to kill them.

I thought the racoon was smart pulling the ring tops off the cat food, but now my dog is doing it. She breaks more than she actually opens. So in terms of ring top IQ the coon is the smartest. And these things are costing me money!

Funny that your dog has learned to open the top. Maybe the fog figures that he might as well try it since the raccoon got away with it.

I don't think she knows about the racoon. But then what do I know. These animals are smarter than we know.

I have a book by Steve Solomon called, "The Intelligent Gardener- growing nutrient dense food". For years he had declining health. He was only eating food from his own organic garden in Oregon sin poor soil. He added a lot of organic matter and compost etc, but still his soil wasn't nutrient dense.

He explains how to read a soil test in detail, and by it, give your soil what it needs so that it is balanced. He gives a history of nutrition around the world and how what they are determined their health.

That was a lot of rambling. Hope it makes sense. The author started Territorial Seed Company.

No rambling. Made perfect sense. At the rate summer has flown this year, I'm still hoping yet to delve into the remineralizing aspects. I wonder if applying any nutrients in the fall would be a good thing for next year.

It would be good to learn how to test so that you are not just making your soil more out of balance by guessing. I am assuming lots of hugel and organic matter in there will come out right, but it probably needs rock dust too. I am more and more convinced that trying to get healthy we are downing the major vitamins, but micronutrients with minerals seems to be what we really need to fine tune our health. And we are not going to get those at the grocery store. Around here (rural Alabama) we do have county agents who will do soil tests for you. Thanks for the tip Anderwood.

http://www.cascademineralsnw.c...

According to Cascade Minerals, fall is the perfect time to be adding rock dusts to improve your soil. its probably a better idea to add minerals in a broad spectrum rather than individually, unless your tests show there is one specific deficiency.

I also ran across a caution that rock dusts may contain heavy metals, so that's something to look out for.

This article mentions several ways to remineralize soil -- there is no seaweed in Alabama - & I guess if there was seaweed in the gulf it would be full of oil.
http://www.lindazurich.com/soi...

Shadegardener said:No dogs, no potatoes but DH does love steak. With my luck, either raccoons or possums would dig them up. I wonder if burying bones is interchangeable with bonemeal application.

Cindy ...

I read years ago that they started steaming products used to create bone meal due to the mad cow disease scare and that the product sold today no longer has true nutrient value. I don't have time to research it this morning, but I thought I would pass along why I no longer bother to even purchase what is currently available.

Re: seaweed - I once heard that there's a big difference between cold water seaweed (ie northern Atlantic) vs warm water seaweed.
I get that farmland minerals can be depleted but I wonder about residential properties. Would lawn and ornamentals deplete soil as drastically as commercial farming? Obviously, it would depend on what native soil one started with or what builder soil was brought in. Just curious.

Lyn - good point about the bone meal.