Soil

[opabinia51]

https://managingwholes.com/_eco-soil-life.htm

Here is a great site on soil, soil consituents, soil organisms and how to build soil.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Great site, Opa!

I like the brittle landscape model; interesting take on restoration and management in different biospheres...

[opabinia51]

Yes, I'll post this here as well:

Leaves, leaves and more leaves. I personally mulch them up before adding them to my lasagna or sheet compost but, you can also leave them whole.

Yes, leaves. Add them! They are great, they add nutrients to the soil and they vastly increase the soil's water holding capacity. I read about a gardner who lives in the desert and only needs to water his garden in late August. Deep sheet or lasagna composting is the answer. And add lots of leaves.

Apple leaves are loaded with nutrients. Stone fruit leaves are pretty good as well. I love personally love maple leaves and have access to tonnes of them. But, use whatever you have provided that they are not toxic like those of Walnut trees. (Juglone)

[The Helpful Gardener]

The micorrhizhal component to soil is the big "secret" (we've known of them since the Thirties, but are JUST starting to pay attention) that makes organic practice the best way to grow and there was a great site linked to your link Opa. Here 'tis...

[url]https://helios.bto.ed.ac.uk/bto/microbes/mycorrh.htm[/url]

Complete and yet understandable...

[opabinia51]

Yes, a lot of plants (and especially trees) will not grown nearly as well without their constituent Mycorrhizal Fungal symbiont.

Very important not to use chemical fertilizers and especially herbicides and pesticides because they all kill beneficial fungi, bacteria, worms and insects.

Feed your soil and your plants will feed you.

[opabinia51]

Note that Mycorrhizal fungi and a prime reason why NOT to sterilize your soil or to buy sterilized soil to plant your trees in. If the soil is sterile; then there will be no fungi in it. No fingi means; no chance of having mycorrhizae. This means that there is no chance of your tree meeting up with it's fungal symbiont.

[The Helpful Gardener]

And that can mean reduced fertilizer uptake, reduced water uptake, reduced gas exchange or a whole slew of other problems based on which fungii are missing...

Scott

[opabinia51]

You'd better believe it!


Contrary to commom belief fungi, bacteria and protozoans are a very good thing. Only a small number out of thousands of "species" are pathogenic.

Sterilizing and using poisons, etc actually kills the beneficials and what ends up happening is we start "selecting for" pathongenic organisms as they (usually) end up being some of the few organisms left that can tolerate the conditions that we make using non organic techniques. Regardless, there are not great numbers of beneficials left to combat the pathogens.

Love those little wonders that live beneath our feet and they will provide us with healthy soil and therefore plants!

[opabinia51]

Here are a few points to consider regarding gardens:

No bare soil. Soil must always be covered with plants or plant litter.
Produce organic matter. Rest groundcover from grazing, or grow green manure crops with minimum tillage.
Graze or slash the groundcover periodically. Use high stock densities for short periods to place organic matter both in and on the soil (root pruning and litter trampling). On pasture cropped land, this may include one or two in-crop graze periods. Green manure crops should be lightly incorporated

Bare soil is very prone to erosion and not to mention leaching of nutrients. Therefore, mulch unused soil with (shudder) woodchips, (sigh) mulched leaves or other mulches. (Manure can be a good mulch but, I would recommend adding some leaves to it)

Even better would be to add a cover crop (preferably a nitrogen fixing cover crop such as clover, peas, beans (fava for winter) or vetch) atop the mulch layer.

(that's what I'm doing this weekend ) My cover crop layer will consist of Rye, peas, vetch and fava beans.

With regard to moisture retention in the soil: Add leaves and plenty of them. Leaves will hold between 300 and 500 percent of their mass in water. So, I have done several trench composts (with leaves and some sort of green) and I am in the process of completing my sheet compost that currently has between 3 and 4 layers of leaves in it. After Saturday it will have between 4 and 5 layers of leaves.

[opabinia51]

Another note on Moisture Retention in the soil:

Have several trench composts in your gardens and fill them with leaves and some sort of green (manure, grass clippings, coffee grinds, etc). Top off with soil and the leaves will hold moisture from Fall/Winter and Spring rains in the soil for a long period of time.

It's almost like having a swale in the garden.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Thanks Opa! A great way to make that drainage swale do double-duty for you...

Scott

[opabinia51]

The only problems with my pseudo swales is that I dug them perpendicular (most of them) to the directional flow of water. Oh well, they'll still work.

Next year, (in the spring) I will dig the trenches perpendicular to the slop of the land such that the pseudo swales will catch more rain water.

BONUS: Through the fact that I am collecting and saving leaves now, I will have plenty of leaves for the trench composts aka pseudo swales next year. Not to mention enough leaves for my compost pile, for the manure pile, the coffee grind pile and hopefully have some left over for the fall sheet compost.

[Grey]

I met a neighbor last night who was more than happy to have me take her leaves! She has many, many trees and PILES of leaves. I met her because my adolecent dog just had to go into her yard and explore. Thankfully she didn't mind.

Now I need more (and bigger) compost bins...

[opabinia51]

What type of leaves did you get Grey?

I also raked up the Cherry leaves of my Landlords and the Japanese Plum leaves of the neighbours. Gotta love those leaves.