If you're going to use seaweed in the garden, Joe Alvarez advises that you toss it in the compost pile first and let it break down. But if you don't care to wait and want to spread it directly on the flower and vegetable beds, that's OK, too.
Just don't pile it on, he says. Sprinkle it into the soil, not on the plants themselves. Joe is an agricultural program assistant in the Rutgers University cooperative extension in Cape May County, and he knows a little about using the bounty of the sea to grow things on land.
"People around here use crab shells, fish heads, fish tails, clam shells for calcium carbonate," he says. All good organic stuff delivered to your door - your feet - at low tide.
Alvarez, like all good extension agents, recommends you get your soil tested before adding any of these things to it. If you've been conscientiously taking care of your soil, adding compost and mulch, and your plants look healthy and happy, chances are you have pretty good soil already and can pass on the soil test. But "if you're a first time starter and you're going to go out and get all the seaweed you can becuase you read it in the paper, it's probably a good idea to get your soil tested first," he says. Otherwise the seaweed may not "take" and it's all for naught.
(You can buy the kits through the extension service and some plant nurseries.)
Joe says seaweed is packed with terrific micronutrients for your plants - nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous, the big three, with traces of boron, copper, manganese and zinc, which "help the plants grow bigger and better."
After this conversation with Joe, I wondered whether it's legal to just wander down to the beach in South Jersey and start collecting seaweed. So I called Bill Hollingsworth, whose official title is "clean communities coordinator" in Ocean City. That sounded good to me.
Bill advises that lots of folks collect seaweed from beaches at the Shore, usually for clambakes or cooking seafood some other way. Seaweed adds moisture and sea water and makes everything it envelops taste moist and magnificent. (I could go for some moist and magnificent seafood right now!)
He's heard of gardeners using it, also fishermen, who like fish heads and other parts left over after they've filleted the day's catch. Clam shells, too, are ground up and used sometimes in commercial driveways and home gardens. They let moisture through for good drainage, which helps prevent flooding, and look nice besides.
"It's Nature's way of recycling," Bill says.
And it's OK, meaning legal, to collect this stuff from the beach. If it's washed up, it's fair game. Ocean City public works employees are out there every day, too - cleaning the beach, picking up shells (which would be hazardous to your feet), and collecting seaweed. They grade the seaweed back into the sand dunes to help build them up.
It's a nice, neat recycling system, the kind Mother Nature is famous for.
