{"id":604,"date":"2016-03-22T10:25:53","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T14:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelittlehalfacre.com\/staging\/?p=604"},"modified":"2016-03-22T10:25:53","modified_gmt":"2016-03-22T14:25:53","slug":"nitrogen-fixers-what-are-they-and-why-do-we-need-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelittlehalfacre.com\/staging\/nitrogen-fixers-what-are-they-and-why-do-we-need-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Nitrogen Fixers &#8211; What Are They and Why Do We Need Them?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last post, I talked about a permaculture food forest and how to establish a system that&#8217;s interconnected and self supporting.\u00a0 One thing I didn&#8217;t talk about is how to make the system as care free as possible.\u00a0 Who wants to continually apply fertilizer or pesticides &#8211; even if they&#8217;re organic?<\/p>\n<p>All plants need nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.\u00a0 A good bag of organic balanced fertilizer that contains all three elements can cost (in our area) up to eleven bucks for a three and a half pound bag.\u00a0 Yikes!\u00a0 In permaculture, the goal is to add elements to the overall garden\/landscape so the plants feed themselves.\u00a0 But let&#8217;s talk about nitrogen in particular.\u00a0 Plants need adequate nitrogen to convert sunlight to growth.\u00a0 How do we supply nitrogen to our permaculture food forest without adding something from a bag?<\/p>\n<p>We add plants that fix nitrogen in the soil.\u00a0 Now, let me just clarify that &#8211; at the very start of your food forest &#8211; you may have to add fertilizers (preferably organic ones) until the plants are established and self supporting.\u00a0 But the goal is to eventually get off the bagged stuff.<\/p>\n<p>There are many trees and plants that supply nitrogen.\u00a0 Putting an adequate number of those in your landscape will solve the nitrogen problem.\u00a0 In our little half acre, there&#8217;s not enough room for nitrogen fixing trees so we&#8217;ll be using other plants.\u00a0 A few that supply nitrogen are Goumi Berry, Balsamroot, Groundnut, Groundplum (or, more commonly, Milkvetch), Lupine, Sweet Vetch, Comfrey and legumes.\u00a0 These are only a few and you should do your research before choosing your nitrogen-fixers.\u00a0 Some of the best nitrogen fixers are invasive species in certain areas and they should not be planted in your permaculture food forest.\u00a0 A list of invasive species for each state can be found online, including one for us here in <a href=\"https:\/\/ncsu.edu\/goingnative\/howto\/mapping\/invexse\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">North Carolina.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In our first food forest area (<a href=\"https:\/\/thelittlehalfacre.com\/staging\/wp-admin\/post.php?post=578&amp;action=edit\">see previous post<\/a>) I&#8217;ll be interspersing some of the above into the landscape to provide nitrogen for the plants that I want to feed.\u00a0 Where ever possible, we&#8217;ll be choosing those plants which stack functions; meaning plants that serve multiple purposes.\u00a0 American groundnut produces edible tubers, flowers and seeds in addition to being a nitrogen-fixer for other plants.\u00a0 Goumi berries are loved by birds and wildlife as well as humans.\u00a0 Balsamroot is edible.\u00a0 You get the idea.\u00a0 We&#8217;ll also be using the juglone tolerant plants closer to the walnut tree and put the non juglone tolerant plants further away on the borders of the food forest.<\/p>\n<p>Another great nitrogen fixer is Comfrey.\u00a0 Although my research doesn&#8217;t show that Comfrey will tolerate the juglone from the walnut tree, we can grow it in a nearby location and then &#8220;chop and drop&#8221; its leaves in the food forest to add nitrogen to the soil.\u00a0 That&#8217;s the plan at least.\u00a0 We&#8217;ll see how it goes &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last post, I talked about a permaculture food forest and how to establish a system that&#8217;s interconnected and self supporting.\u00a0 One thing I didn&#8217;t talk about is how&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[29,28],"class_list":["post-604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-permaculture","tag-food-forests","tag-nitrogen-fixers"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Nitrogen Fixers - What Are They and Why Do We Need Them? 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