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ID jit
Green Thumb
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2016 10:00 am
Location: SE New England: zone twilight or 5b... hard for me to tell some days.

How to Deal with a (probably) Luxury Problem ???

I use water permeable, weed blocking landscape fabric and clean grass clippings to suppress weeds, and it is pretty effective. They are 2 foot strips of fabric spaced about a foot apart. I plant in the center of that foot and fill in the uncovered space with clean grass clipping, generally trying to get an inch of clippings once they settle in. As the season goes on I occasionally have to add more.

This is the first year I have paid more attention than "Weeds suppressed? Check. Watered? Check? Plants look like they will produce something? Check."

For the first time, I am trying to get in a second planting of peas, beats, spinach, etc.

So, I pull out what is left of the clipping and fold back the fabric strips and start looking at the soil. I have 1/8" to +1/4" of worm castings (little balls of dark earth) on the surface. I worked them into the soil along with some fresh compost and prepped the rows with one of those 3-finger claw foot thingies.

I had to examine what I had found, and discovered that worm castings don't dissolve readily in water and actually take a bit of force to break up between my fingers.

Is there something else I should be doing to break down the worm casting before I plant?

Thanks much

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applestar
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Posts: 30514
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

I don't think so. The microbes will break them down and plant roots probably just suck nutrients right from them. The structure probably adds to / enhances the aggregate of the soil.



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