Sea weed gathering for use as garden soil improvement. SCO 8141
Seaweed has been used as a soil improver for centuries, particularly in coastal areas. Seaweed contains several useful plant nutrients, including nitrogen, potassium, phosphate and magnesium. There are dried and liquidised forms available from garden centres and seaweed is a common additive to fertilisers, both organic and non-organic. Several of the 12,000+ varieties of seaweed in the ocean have been shown to be valuable additions to the organic garden and can be abundantly available free for those living near the coast. However, caution should be observed when collecting seaweed, particularly from areas that are liable to pollution, such as downriver (including estuaries) of industrial activities as seaweed is susceptible to contamination. There are also legal implications relating to gathering seaweed, and concerns about sustainability A perhaps less serious potential problem with seaweed is its salt content. While it is unlikely that you will add sufficient seaweed to seriously upset the balances of salt in your soil, it is not liked by worms, who will not live in it. It can be hosed down before adding to the soil to reduce the salt content, or left to be desalinated by rainwater. Rinsing seaweed is risky as valuable alginates are potentially lost to runoff Seaweed, particularly bladderwrack, kelp or laminaria, can be either applied to the soil as a mulch (although it will tend to break down very quickly) or can be added to the compost heap, where it is an excellent terms of soil structure it does not add a great deal of bulk, but its jelly like alginate content helps to bind soil crumbs together, and it contains all soil nutrients ( N, P, K, plus a full range of trace elements) and amino acids. For those who cannot gather fresh seaweed, it is available commercially in a dried 'meal' form or as a concentrated liquid extract which is active in significantly smaller rates.
Size: 6070px × 4029px
Location: Qualicum beach, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Canada.
Photo credit: © David Gowans / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: &, ., 100%, balanced, bed, boost, clean, clear, collecting, compound, consumables, crops, dead, ecosystem., ensures, environment, fertiliser, flower, food, form, full, garden, gardening, gather, gathering, give, goodness, growth, hand, harvested, harvesting, healthiest, healthy, horticulture, humus, islands, kelp, kitchen, level., life, loading, local, machines, magnesium, material, mineral, natural, needed, nitrogen, nurishment, nutrient, nutrition, organic, packed, people, phosphate, plant, potassium, poviding, productive, respecting, rich, seaweed, soil, strong, superb, surrounding, sustainability, sustenance, vegetable, waters, wild
