Kitchen Garden Forum

As a new guy I would like to ask if any one has used Rock Dust and with what results.
Plot 100

seems deathly quiet out there ive not used it but have read about it somewhere. as far as i can remember someone noticed that the trees arround a german quarry were thiving wheras the rest of the forest was dying from polution, acid rain or whatever. i think it was in "secrets of the soil" by peter tompkins or christopher bird?

I knew I'd read an article on a couple in Scotland using rock dust for veg growing somewhere - just found it on :

www.bbc.co.uk/education/beyond/factshee ... rog3.shtml

Hope this helps.

Sue

Thanks Richard and Sue for your replys,I like richards comment its deathly quiet out there,I must agree I did think a few out there would have given it a go. I know I can type in rock dust on my pc and get a lot of hits and they all refer you to the Seercentre in scotland but they need a new customer service dept. as you are lucky to get a reply.
I wanted to give rock dust a go as I like a challenge on my allotment, two years ago I got fedup with carrot fly so I made some coffin type boxes with old doors,now I give more away than I can use,this year I have done the same to beat white onion rot with a good results.
Plot 100

Didn't Piglet post a response on Rock Dust? He's our Quarry Man.

Oh sorry my previous post was not that helpful Plot 100

Have had a quick flick through some soil science books I have (had 2 modules on it when I was doing my college course - lucky me!). Without going too far into the gripping world of soil formation, the basics seems to be that the ice ages pounded a lot of rocks into dust in the UK and Northern Europe, keeping a steady flow of the basic minerals entering the soil system. These form the building blocks of soil fertility. Farmers typically add fertiliser and organic matter and these aid plant growth, but there is now evidence that the mineral content of our crops is decreasing and it's attributed to the fact that it's been a while since the last ice age.

Rock dust is used much more frequently in areas of the world which never had ice ages and has been proven to really benefit agricultural and forestry land. They refer to it as 'remineralization' so if you type that in your search engine you should get some more hits. I tried this and got quite a few US and Aussie sites.

Sue

viewtopic.php?t=544&highlight=rock+dust

Knew I'd partaken of a thread on this before, well nudged that stripey bouncy person.

Oh, Peter, you sweet talker, you.

Boing!