Looks like a very interesting method that I've never heard of or seen really. The only issue I might find here is that maybe our soil is naturally fairly high in nitrogen (which it seems to be, though we've never done soil tests), and we had way more nitrogen fertilizer than is needed. It may not hurt some crops like corn but maybe so tomatoes, which would leaf out but give no fruit. If someone has a fairly dead soil, which seems common here in this part of the U.S., I think the method would prove to give some good profit.

It seems as though one needs to buy quite a lot of extra minerals and and the such for this method, which I could see adding a big dent to a budget. I feel that using a manure tea of some sort (or comfrey for that matter) would almost be a must, as I question whether the plants could even take up those minerals without a bacteria in the soil presently feeding them to the plant, though maybe I'm wrong on that.

Another question aroused is how well the nutrients play if extreme weather conditions hit. For example, if I were to fertilize my garden one day, then the next a thunderstorm that drops a load of rain onto us, would the rain wash all of the soluable nutrients away, leaving my plants stressed and without nutrients? Then I would obviously feed after the storm, but that adds up in even more cost. Again, bacteria would play a strong role here, as they could hold onto the nutrients so that they do not wash away during the storm. If the soil is not nourished however, I wonder if this could cause an issue.

I would love to see how this method plays out. Maybe I'll try an experiment myself!

Well, you make some very good points.

I definitely would not add nutrients right before a heavy rain, but it might be helpful to add them right before a light rain. I am not as well-informed about NPK as I would like to be and hope that I will get some help on that with this master gardener class that's starting soon. I do think my garden soil is low in nitrogen because I notice that after we've had a big storm, with lots of lightning, my garden always perks up, big time. I have heard that this is because during periods of lightning, the air is filled with nitrogen. Not sure if that's an old wive's tale but SOMETHING definitely happens out there.

I went to a local greenhouse where I like to buy things and struck up a conversation with the owner, who said they don't even carry 16-16-16 and they've never had anyone ask for it before. She had some concerns similar to yours. She also said gypsum does not change the ph of the soil, like adding lime would, so it's not the opposite effect one thinks when it is said, "add gypsum if you have dry conditions and lime if you have wet". Even thinking that, who among us has consistently dry, or consistently wet soil? Even we, sitting atop limestone (which, she said, doesn't mean we will not have soil that's deficient in lime), often have very wet springs, and then drought settling in with killer heat by August. She said gypsum's benefits are that, if you have heavy soil that clumps and hardens into rock-like structures during dry conditions, gypsum can be used to lighten the soil so that will not happen. I don't know what my land was used for prior to when homes were built out here in the 1960's but this woman said she believed it was just pasture. When we moved here, there were only three trees, total, on the whole 1.67 acre area, so not much happening out here but grass and weeds. Bermuda, Johnson Grass, Bindweed, and Puncture Vine, to be exact.

It's a sad fact that we really can't ever be confident that something someone presents to us as this marvelous "fix" is not just a marketing ploy. I'm inclined to be suspicious if it involves buying something that is only available from the person who is recommending the method. Or from someone who is using the testimonials of others toward that purpose. There are all kinds of tricks played on the marketing target such as contrived shortages, seemingly trustworthy testimonials, claims of protection from all kinds of bad things that may never happen, and many more. He says he can grow food in just a mixture of sawdust and sand and in that case I can see how 16-16-16 would benefit, but then again, it's inorganic.

The packet of "minerals" is somewhere around $15 and that's supposed to last the average home gardener all of one season. I don't know what constitutes "average" or whether I would fall into that category. And then there's that part about needing plenty of water, which, yeah, if I had an elaborate sprinkling system set up and could keep plenty of moisture in the ground I would have a better garden just because of that, alone. But when we get above 100º and the wind starts blowing, it becomes too expensive to have a garden because of the water bill.

I too and am fairly sceptical about big shot gardeners and their salesman tactics at times....However, I just haven't had great luck with traditional gardening methods. Too many pests and diseases, and as you've said sometimes heat. I've sampled a garden method of No-Dig this last autumn where I laid 1-2" of compost on mostly undisturbed ground and set my cabbages in that. So far they've taken off like they have never before, no trouble rooting into the below soil. We also laid 2" of a compost/soil mix on undisturbed sheet rock and planting flowers into it. They were a bit poor at first, but they really took off once they became established. I'm interested to see what the cabbages will produce this next spring (optimistically assuming they will of course). I'm hoping to try this method more with the rest of our garden this year, following Charles Dowding's methods. I guess tilling to me never has made much sense as it doesn't seem as though plants in the forest (trees, flowers, grass) have trouble rooting into undisturbed ground. It should prove to be an interesting experiment, and maybe I'll fail, but I guess that's Gardening. 50/50 chance you'll fail and you won't won't fail! I guess it just depends on what God wills for us to grow one year to the next...

I'm assuming you have the typical Ozarks clay, rocky, sheet rock soil. Lol anytime we want to plant a tree we have to dig a hole with a pic axe to break up the rock. Supposedly when my great grandparents built their barn quite a long time ago, they had to drop dynamite down holes to break up the rock so they could put their barn support posts in. Fun...

Thats interesting about the rain bit. I know that many people used to till snow into the soil if it snowed without the ground having frozen. Said it was a "poor man's fertilizer". I guess that the snow contained nitrogen from the atmosphere. I wonder if the same would be true of rain?

Oh, yes indeed, you're singin' my song... Hence my screen name, Rockwhisperer. We have planted many trees -- fruit trees inside the fence, trees that are native to our area on the land around the outside of the fence, ones that local folks call "trash trees", but I say, "what good is it to have a tree if it won't flourish here??" So, mulberry for the birds, persimmon, crab apple, hackberry, thronless locust, whatever I can get my hands on. We've added bushes around the garden fence, bridal wreath to attact beneficials, different colors of crape myrtles, euonymous, nanking cherry, American cranberry, elderberry, etc., etc. Every time we plant something we have a huge pile of different sizes of rock. Mostly we find the rock in the ground is only in a "sheet" because they are so tightly fitted together, and once you find "the key stone" the rest can be pried out. But now and then, we run into something that, no matter how far we dig out around, we cannot find the edges. And then we just abandon the hole and start a new one in another location. It seems like I am digging rock out of the garden every spring. One person told me she thought the rocks "float" up toward the surface and I'm getting so I believe that, too.

I, too, don't like to till, because it kills the earthworms and now and then we have maimed a toad and that really upsets me. That little ugly, warty creature is worth his keep in insects eaten. We also scare out a lizard now and then and I would hate to kill one of those. But I just can't seem to get on top of the Bermuda grass and bindweed. We have pretty much eradicated the puncture vine by hand pulling it and burning the stuff we pull up. But our neighbors' dogs roam the acreage out here, and bring new barbs clinging to the fur on their feet, and so we find new areas of it growing every now and then. Almost everyone has at least one dog, it seems. When the coyotes start yipping, every dog for several miles around sounds the alarm and it sounds like a dang kennel out here. Everyone has from a little over an acre to five acres and we all keep our grassland mowed to protect against wildfire. A couple of our neighbors have ten acres or so and they either run cattle on it or they have the grass baled for hay. I can't see how it's top quality hay, because I think all it is, is Bermuda grass. We've planted clover out here because of the nitrogen it adds to the soil but it is hard-pressed to hold it's own against the Bermuda during drought times.

We have bordered our land in those rock we've dug out of holes, our "rock wall" is about two feet tall. It serves another purpose other than just a use for the extra rock. It keeps the lawn care service that one of our neighbors sometimes uses from turning off onto our land in their trucks and trailers, for the purpose of turning around. Hubs went over and asked them not to do that, as they were making ruts, and it was hard for him to mow, but they would just say "ok" and do it anyway if they thought we weren't watching.

I had never heard that about "Poor Man's Fertilizer". LOL We hardly ever get enough snow to till in, but I would think allowing it to lay there till it soaks in would be the same thing, wouldn't it? But I do prefer rain water to tap water and I wish we had a well, but we are on a water district and they get the water from the City. It is laced with stuff I don't like, like chlorine and fluoride and I'm scared to know what else. We have an old cistern that was used by the first owners of our house in the 1960's. One of our old-timer neighbors told us that when they blasted for the cistern, the foundation was already poured for the house, and the blast took out the foundation, too, so that was to do all over again. Our house was hit by lightning about 15 years ago and burned. Was rebuilt, improved in some areas, not so much in others. That's the nature of everyone's home, I guess.