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jbest123
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Posts: 57
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 10:17 am
Location: Zone 5 WPA

Three years of raised bed core samples

This is from 2010.

Four years ago I filled my new raised beds with composted lawn and garden debris rich with horse bedding. My gardening style with these beds has been no till and I top dress the beds each fall with composted horse bedding. As the red worms bring bottom soil and casings in to the beds I have to top dress less and less. The next three photos are of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd year core samples in that order. In the first photo you can see what looks like soil and/or worm casing on the bottom and many recognizable wood chips and pine needles on the top. The core sample in the second photo fell apart when trying to remove it from the mold. It may have been drier or smaller particle size that caused it to fall apart. There was a good bit more material that looked like soil/casing and just a few recognizable wood chips and no pine needles. The core sample in the third photo looked homogeneous from top to bottom with no recognizable material. It fell apart easier than the second core sample and I am more convinced it has to do with particle size and moisture. When this sample dries out (to save on postage) I will send it to Penn State University for analysis. One of there tests is percentage organic material. Since the only thing I have put in the beds was organic, I think I can assume that anything that is not organic is either soil or worm casing.
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Capture 2 by tsebmj, on Flickr

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Capture1 by tsebmj, on Flickr

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Capture by tsebmj, on Flickr

imafan26
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Posts: 13962
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

It reminds me of something a gardener once said. Every year my hair gets whiter and my soil gets darker. You have some very good looking soil.

j3707
Green Thumb
Posts: 306
Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2009 10:11 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest, Zone 8, 48" annual rainfall, dry summers.

Very nice. Great idea taking core samples.



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