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gixxerific
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I do have 2 soil test kits, they are very old but I'm sure they will still work. I was planning on doing a test this year. Remember that this is only the second season of my garden. In reality the majority of my garden is first year never planted on. It was HEAVY clay and rock nastiness when I began it is getting much better. Maybe I'm going about it all wrong but I'm not a biologist, I'm a backyard gardener.

Though in my defense I have about 300 sq ft of garden. I have only added a small bag of pulverized lime last year. Though I added 2 truckloads of compost and I believe 2 maybe 3 truckloads of manure plus most of my grass clippings and lots of leaves as well as kitchen scraps throughout '09.

How far off am I, and what would you suggest I do or change?

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Geez gixxerific. I think you've done everything I would have done except for the lime. I don't know jack about gardening so the lime would have never occurred to me. I'm cheap too so I make compost instead buying things for the garden.

I started composting when I decided to plant some grass where we used to live. I cleared out a pile of leaves before I started and noticed it was moist and full of worms and lots of little seedlings sprouting in the midst of hard dry soil in a desert climate. Then I went out and bought a truckload of topsoil with compost mixed in it. I spread the seeds and when I went to spread the cover I found bits of asphalt and concrete.

The rye grass grew in time for the coming rains so we didn't end up with a flooded back patio but when the rye grass finally died away in about 11 months I was left with dry hard soil again.

I felt dumb for paying money for dirt. My father-in-law mentioned something about composting and I asked him a few questions. I looked at a few things on the internet and just started. One thing lead to another and I currently have four bins running and if I get off my lazy butt, I'll get up to 5 or 6 again.

In the process I've acquired patience, a little knowledge about gardening and plants and soil. I've also acquired an appreciation of everything I consume now that I try to digest everything I can in my happy bio-remediation bins.

Now compost is a happy by-product and I'm slowly improving the cruddy soil that is our sub urban plot. One of these days I'll figure out how to make time to grow a garden.

to sense

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Yeah, gixx. You've obviously worked hard, learned a lot along the way, grown some great gardens, and you are working to garden with nature, so you are way ahead of most people. Even though I had been an organic, work with nature gardener for years, I've learned a lot since I've been on this forum too. Most of us have tended to focus on soil chemistry (that's where the NPK's and pH's come in). The Helpful Gardener's wisdom is to focus on soil biology instead; it's a whole new way of thinking.

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rot wrote:..

Geez gixxerific. I think you've done everything I would have done except for the lime. I don't know jack about gardening so the lime would have never occurred to me. I'm cheap too so I make compost instead buying things for the garden.



..
Trust me I'm cheap too (unless it comes to electronics). All that stuff I have put in my garden was only 25$ or so. The manure is free where I get it and lime is super cheap. You get t free yards of compost, mulch a year if you live in the city where the Compost facility is so bonus there.

I had a great spot for compost at my last house I haven't quite found the perfect place for it at this house yet but I get by.

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gixxerific
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rainbowgardener wrote:Yeah, gixx. You've obviously worked hard, learned a lot along the way, grown some great gardens, and you are working to garden with nature, so you are way ahead of most people. Even though I had been an organic, work with nature gardener for years, I've learned a lot since I've been on this forum too. Most of us have tended to focus on soil chemistry (that's where the NPK's and pH's come in). The Helpful Gardener's wisdom is to focus on soil biology instead; it's a whole new way of thinking.
As some of you know I have been gardening mostly organically for 10-15 years. As you said I as well as you have learned a lot form here but there is so much to know, so I keep my learning cap on all the time. No offense Scott but some of the stuff you talk about goes right over my head, but I try to figure it all out.

NPK, pH, anaerobic, aerobic, nematodes, micro-macro-biology, to till or not to till, hoop houses, green houses, companion planting AHHHHHHH I need a road map! :lol:

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No offenses meant or taken, Gixx. Some of the stuff I talk about goes right over pros heads, too. I still remember the groans when I taught a class on merging soil biology and soil chemistry to the NOFA faithful; it is not easy stuff to grasp, mostly because it calls so many sacred cows, like liming and chemical fertilization into question.

And that is all I am really trying to do here, shift some paradigms away from being chemists to being biologists (figuratively speaking, Gixx). Until we start to realize that biological means, and ecologically sound means are one and the same, that utilizing natural systems leads to naturally fertile gardens, we will continue to lime, and use chemical fertilizers and pesticides, all of which shuts down the natural systems that nature uses to support plant life. In other words, work with Nature or against it. Really isn't much grey area here; certainly not as much as many people assume.

I am not trying to bash anybody or turn everyone into scientists, just trying to show folks there IS a better way... as for roadmaps Gixx, I just don't know two people that do everything the same, so no map will get everyone to the right place. We all find our own way when pointed in the right general direction and that is mostly what I try to do.

IF there is one thing I do think applies to everyone everywhere (and those of you who have been around here a while are probably sick of hearing it) it is compost. The naturally occuring biology is all that is necessary to release soil nutrition, balance pH, retain moisture, increase tilth and support plant systems in a non-soluble, non-polluting manner that is good for ALL living things from top to bottom of the food web.

Compost ALWAYS works, and is pretty much ALL you need to have a healthy garden. Sure I buy some fish ferts and alfalfa pellets and corn gluten and even some commercially made compost because I find benefit there I cannot get myself, but for the most part I build my gardens with compost, and they simply get better and better. So will yours.

So Gixx, don't take this personally. I have come down the same road you are on now, I am just a little further down it than you. I am just trying to save you the time and labor and money of messing around with lime, as if you get your greens and browns in line, pH just follows. Nature is a smart mother like that.

For instance, once bacteria figured out how to eat lignin (back in the [url=https://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/carboniferous/carboniferous.html]Carboniferous era[/url], about 290 million years back), we have had the exact same amount of oxygen in the air, about 21%. Ice ages, warming periods, mass extinctions come and go, but between plant material, soil biology, ocean systems, et al, the planet finds the exact balance.

In the early Carboniferous era, when plants developed lignin, but nature had not yet figured out how to digest it, carbon locked up in dead plant material and could not rot (this is how we got coal and oil, and WHY it might be bad to put all that locked up carbon back in the atmosphere, but thats another story). So carbon levels in the atmosphere got lower and the oxygen levels shot up to around thirty percent. And the planet went haywire. 150 foot tree ferns and three foot dragonflies; everything got huge. But eventually Nature found her balance again. Nature is always striving for ecological equilibrium in every system, every predator/prey relationship, every weather pattern.

Humans are the only species that has developed the ability to distinctly alter all these relationships. Scientists call our current geological period the Anthropocene, or age of man, because man is having more geological effect than any other natural force. We should never forget that we wield a two-edged sword whenever we take steps to alter our environs, and in my mind, we should look to Nature to find the balance she is always striving for.

That's all I'm sayin... :)

HG

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gixxerific
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Yet another great post Scott.

I'm totally with you on the compost thing. I have always composted my last garden was very fertile so I never had the need to go buy compost but my garden now was a virgin and needed some help. I'm sure some people will look down on me buying others compost since it might have left over chemical residues and whatnot but you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. :D

The whole idea of the earth righting it's wrongs to stay in balance is great but let's see what it will do about our intervention. Mankind is not only killing the planet but themselves mom nature might just body check us into oblivion some day to retain the balance we are taking away.

By the way keep doing what you are doing and I myself read all your links as well.

I love this place

Dono

Now where is that dang Spring thing they keep talking about. :P

rot
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..

So chemistry is the diagnostic, a la soil tests, and biology the treatment.

Reducing it down further: compost and mulch to the teeth.

I think that's all about I'm going to do.

Thanks again.

to sense

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To Rot: Certainment, mon ami. C'est bonne...

To Gixx: Look down on buying compost? Not me. Do it at least once a year and have two different sources, but I know these guys and they both do it right. One's a dairy farmer who only uses antibiotics on sick animals and quarantines them, and the other guy runs a USDA Organic farm. Both have been composting for over a decade, and I can call and talk anytime about what's going on. Get to know your supplier.

As for the other part, bumping off our species might just be Nature's way of restoring balance. Could hardly blame her at this point. To whit, Alaska has gone up three degrees average in the past decade, the Arctic ice sheet is about half as thick in the places it is still left, and methane levels up there are showing up to 1000 times the normal backgound readings, meaning the methane clathrate (frozen methane) has begun thawing (methane is twenty times more powerful that that greenhouse gas we all know and love, CO2).

Last time that happened on earth, temperatures skyrocketed in just a few years and triggered our last mass extinction. Hang on, humans, this could get bumpy... won't make gardening any easier, either... :evil:

HG

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HG I;m sure the city's composting is pretty good. But some might say you don't know where all the material came from and they would have a point. All that compost is from the city's collection from residences. Though I not all that worried. They do call it "Class A Screened" compost whatever that may mean. [url=https://www.stpetersmo.net/default.asp?pageID=10286]My composting Facility[/url]

I'm aware of the some of the problems we are facing due to our stupidity negligence and just plain laziness. It could be another Ice age or worse. Humans think nothing can stop us but the dinosaurs probably thought the same thing. :shock: :( :evil:

Peace
Dono

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gixxerific wrote:HG

Humans think nothing can stop us but the "dinosaurs" probably thought the same thing. :shock: :( :evil:
well only the big ones :lol: :roll:

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Gixx, we should talk about your compost; are you paying for this stuff? From your link...
The compost is a blend of mixed yard waste and biosolids processed to produce a "Class A" compost product.
Let's talk "Class A compost" first...

Class A compost means it contains composted human waste. By that definition, this stuff should NEVER be used on human food crops, although the US Compost Council (who refused to post my warnings on elevated prionic content of sewer sludge compost in their forum) are[url=https://mailman.cloudnet.com/pipermail/compost/2004-January/011580.html]trying to get it classified as "compost" itself[/url].

But the [url=https://www.epa.gov/owm/mtb/biosolids/503pe/index.htm]503 laws[/url]on compost are still the law of the land, and that means if you do use this on food crops, you have to wait 30 days to harvest crops that don't touch the soil, 14 months to harvest crops that do touch the soil, and 20 months if it a crop in the soil. I have hesitations with its use at all, but I understand the need to deal with our waste streams in all forms and understand this is better than a pipe to the river. But I do not think it should EVER be used on food crops, and here's why...

There is growing concern that prionic pollution may be responsible for many of our most troubling diseases. Alzheimers research is showing prion concentration in the associated brain plaques that appear in conjunction with this disease. We already know that mad cow disease is spread by prionic contamination (in this case from feeding animal proteins to herbivores), and crucuru, the wasting disease associated with cannabilism, is being paralleled by a disease seen among fisherman along the Neuse River in North Carolina, vectored by handling the fish, but linked to the huge pig CAFOs that have been allowed to overrun their manure lagoons into the river without penalty. The wasting disease in deer we are experiencing in our midwest is also a prionic disease....

So this is no joke, no foolin' around; this stuff has NOT been thoroughly tested (only one company has developed a reliable test for mad cow), has NOT been roundly approved for food crops, even when it is further composted like your town does, and it should come with a warning label (I see no such warning on the link :evil: ). Much like pesticides, while Canada and Europe utilize the safety of the[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle]Precautionary Principle[/url] as its guide to using biosolids, the US continues to use its population as guinea pigs...nice... :x

Don't be a guinea pig, Gixx... :( I'd find better compost for my food crops, or better yet make your own...

HG

HG

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gixxerific
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Let me reread your post real fast, it was hard to read while I was running in my wheel. (a little guinea pig humor).

OH MY! That doesn't sound very good. I will have to look into this a little further. Maybe I will try to contact someone from that facility.

I suppose you would be against putting manure in the garden and tilling in early spring as well or what is your idea on this. I hear you talking about sominila (sp) possibilities.

Thanks, Dono

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HG -- YOWZA! :eek:
I think we need a link to your post all on it's own and Stickified at the top of the Compost Forum to discuss this topic instead of buried in this thread discussing ashes.

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The previous discussion on the subject didn't seem to be much of a discussion.

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20703

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I gather the issue is sewer sludge as opposed to humanure a la Joe Jenkins? Right?

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to lousy sense

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Thanks for bringing that thread up, rot. I TOTALLY missed your new contributions on 12/29 -- love your Diet Pepsi Remediation tek BTW :wink: -- excellent idea, too to link it here. :D

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AS, you might ask Rog to sticky the Sewer Sludge post rot linked to; I would be happy to ellucidate what I do know...

rot, I am not at all sure what Joe is proposing, let alone whether or not it is a good idea. Any carniverous/omniverous animal is going to excrete prions. While Joe's methodology at least allows for dispersal at the user level (avoiding the prionic concentration issue as much as possible; a good thing, I'll admit), I don't think we know enough about this issue yet to make a call. The science is just not gelled yet...

What I DO think (my hunch, in other words) is the best possibilities lie in anaerobic digestion with effective microbes, followed by mycoremediation. While we still don't have complete understandings of either of these two systems, we do know that they are both powerful natural tools in remediating toxins in soils. I believe this type of system needs real science thrown at it (instead of vague ramblings from some poseur with a web site... :wink: ).

HG

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So how did we get here from "ashes in the compost"? :?

Anyways thanks for opening my eyes to this. I just read rots links and all the links that brought up. I won't be going back to get compost from there again. Which really is a bummer since it was so cheap. There are several other places around here that have (I believe) straight up compost. some are nursery's there are a few tree removal business that take all there cuttings and make compost as well, thing is they are more expensive, but I guess that is how it will be. I still need to go talk to the cattle farmer that is literally the next road down from me if they have any manure/compost available.

About mycoremediation is it a good or bad sign to have mushrooms pop up all over. Last year they were everywhere in my garden and my lawn?

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Mushrooms usually send gardeners running for the lime, but the are simplly the fruiting bodies of vast mycelial nets that can go for miles.

Some of these CAN be tree pathogens (if you see little mushrooms sprouting around the base of a tree, or worse yet, a conk growing out of a tree, it is a sure sign there is some infection of said tree). That said, many fungal infections can live in trees for decades without becoming pathogenic.

The other thing to remember is trees falling down and rotting (the rotting being accomplished almost ENTIRELY by fungii) is how Nature builds soil and fertility in the wild. These organisms are part and parcel of the natural cycle; mankind cannot simply pick and choose what parts of it he likes. As soon as we interrupt any one part of this cycle, we disturb the whole thing. Besides, the stuff we do use to combat mushrooms is usually damaging across a wide spectrum of mushrooms, not disease specific. You cannot use shotgun approaches and not expect further issues caused by the gaping holes you just punched in the soil food web.

To bring this back to thread point, fire has been a natural way of returning trees to the soil since there was trees. The other method, for time immemorial, has been fungii (the other beauty of interlocking natural systems is you can always find a way to get back on topic without playing 7 Degrees Of Kevin Bacon. :wink: )

HG

rot
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HG, elucidate away. Please.

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My point about sewer sludge vs humanure was driving at the issue of the difference between what's in a sewer vs what comes directly out of us before it goes into the sewer.

We have to expect that anything and everything ends up in the sewer from toothpaste to drain cleaner to antibiotics to heavy metals. Composting what comes out of a sewer has to be considered in the context of what goes in then comes out. What comes out of us, before it goes into the sewer, was food safe at one point, ostensibly, and far different than what comes out of the sewer.

Forgive me if I seemed to suggest that we could just compost sewer sludge into something benign. Still, I wonder, would there be benefit to composting sewer sludge.

I would suggest, however, that sewers are a 19th century solution that is fast becoming a 21st century problem. Let's see, throw in everything that the 21st century throws into a sewer and see what grows. I'm betting whatever it is will be super resistant to anything we can throw at it since we already did when throwing it in the sewer.

Whatever survives or thrives in a sewer is going to be resistant to most of our antibiotics because we've already deposited most of our antibiotics into the sewer systems.

Beyond what Joe Jenkins offers, composting what comes out of us directly, what other alternatives to sewer systems do we have? Septic tanks? I'll let you argue that EM method with the local surfers 'round here that are getting mighty fed up with infections from a day at the beach.

..

Wouldn't we be better off if our night soil (ignoring sewer sludge) was composted as opposed to the way it is now, uncomposted?

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to sense

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Interesting, directly beneath rot's post when I scrolled down (below the books) was an ad for composting toilet. I used to have one when I lived on a 5 acre property and I do believe it's what we should all be doing.

Not only does it save the "night soil" to be returned to the land, but it uses no water. We flush vast quantities of drinking quality water down our toilets in order to rid ourselves of good organic humanure.

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We have installed a compost toilet in our guest cabin here at the lake and it works like a charm but to this point we have not emptied it. When we do empty it I know for certain I will not put it into our food gardens. I may use it around rose bushes and that sort of thing but not anywhere that I'll be digging with my bare hands for a long time.

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While Timlin's take may seem timid, I think with the lack of knowledge on prionic infection, it just makes sense. On the flower beds, the shrubs and trees, even golf courses, or turf not destined for toddlers and tootsies; s'all good, but we should not be guinea-pigging out on food raised with this stuff...

HG

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Sage Hermit wrote:-Do not add ash with nitrogen fertilizers such as ammonium sulfate (21-0-0-24S), urea (46-0-0) or ammonium nitrate (34-0-0). These fertilizers produce ammonia gas when placed in contact with high pH materials such as wood ash.
If you mix a hand full of ammonium nitrate with a 5 gallon bucket of organic material then add enough water to make it all wet, put a piece of plywood on top of the bucket for a lid and come back tomorrow. It will have a very strong ammonia gas smell. Wood ash has nothing to do with making ammonia gas.
Last edited by Gary350 on Mon May 03, 2010 8:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

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No that's true...

The wood ash can make phosgene, an even more toxic gas...

Fukuoka-sensei talks about how he thought there would be no issue with spreading a little wood ash, but when he did it dissolved all the spider webs and the leaf hoppers damages his rice crop without the insect predators to control them...

We are always sure we are right about these things and we rarely are... we are for the most part uninformed about the realities of soil, nature and the ecosystems around us, and much of what we have been doing for decades, even centuries, is counterproductive... I put some ash in my compost, but I am done puttingash in soils directly. Char is one thing, ash is another...

HG



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