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Saturday, March 21, 2009

Your Survival Garden Needs Molasses for the Good Guys

Molasses isn’t just for cornbread any more. Believe it or not, you can—and should—be using it in your garden or on the farm because it boosts growth of friendly microbes in the soil. As a result your plants will grow as nutrients become more readily available to them.

A number of people have experimented with a mixture of molasses and compost or fertilizer. Two tablespoons of unsulfured molasses per gallon of water or liquid fertilizer is all you need for jump starting nitrogen fixing bacteria and other friendly microbes, including good fungi. Those good guys need food, too, if they’re to be beneficial to the plants, and molasses provides the carbohydrates and energy they need. If you’ve heard of the idea that you have to feed the soil to feed the plants, well this is it.

Good bacteria in soil will kill off pathogens, the disease causing microbes. With molasses added to your compost, you may not need to use as much compost. The good guys of the microbial world will make nutrients more readily available for your plants.

Incidentally, fire ants don’t like molasses. Pour a molasses solution in your yard or around trees where they may be living, and they’ll move away.

Unsulfured molasses is the best for adding to your soil or compost. In fact, organic blackstrap unsulfured molasses is ideal. If you can’t find it locally, try Amazon.com. They carry several brands and sizes of unsulfured molasses. One of them is 16 oz. of Plantation brand Organic Blackstrap Molasses, which is one of Amazon’s best selling grocery items and has received five out of five star evaluations. Click on the logo below to order some for yourself, and watch your survival garden produce like never before.

I'm adding molasses to compost and soil mixes this year myself and am looking forward to good results. If you try this out, please feel free to leave a comment and report on your results for other readers.

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