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4

FERTILIZATION

GOAL: Build and maintain proper levels of and balances
among soil nutrients while maintaining an adequate level of
humic and carbonic acids for good nutrient cycling

he goal of a GROW BIOINTENSIVE Sustainable Mini-
Farm is to produce essentially all of the soil’s fertility
sustainably and to eventually need no outside inputs.
A GROW BIOINTENSIVE system endeavours to build
nutrients up to their proper levels and in balance for
your particular soil type, rainfall, climate, sun exposure,
altitude, and cation-exchange capacity (a measurement of
the availability of nutrients in a given soil), while
keeping these nutrients in your food-raising area by
composting properly and recycling all wastes. This is
possible once the soil nutrients are balanced through
competent soil analysis followed by the application of
the appropriate quantities of organic fertilizers.
Sustainability can be achieved by accomplishing two
goals:

• growing “compost crops” to generate sufficient cured
  compost, and