Terry Coombs wrote:

I read somewhere that when you plant a (bare root) tree that you should
use the same soil that came out of the hole to fill it . The reasoning was
that if you use nice soil when the roots hit the edge of the hole they would
treat it as if it were a planter/pot and just fill the "good soil" with
roots until it is root bound .

I'm wondering if the same principle applies to the veggies I've grown
here . I dig a hole a good bit larger than the root ball/soil in the small
pots I use for seedlings and fill it with a mixture of manure and soil from
the hole when I transplant . We don't have much topsoil here , and in my
inexperience when I first started my garden I think I let a lot of it wash
away (the garden is on a slope) .

I'm amending that now by tilling straw into the soil after using it as a
thick mulch to retard runoff and keep weeds down . But the soil is still
mostly in pretty poor condition so I still dig the holes and fill with an
"enriched" mixture . I just got to wondering , thinking back on the size of
the root balls in past years . Seems like they never get any bigger than the
otiginal hole ...

it depends a lot upon the plant/species as
to how far the roots may go.

i usually plant the tomato plants in a
fairly small but deep hole, but by the time
the summer is over i cannot usually pull the
plants out by hand. most the time i just cut
them off and leave the roots in the soil to
rot in place.

onions on the other hand, the roots don't
go much beyond six to eight inches. beans
look to go about a foot and a half. some i
can pull out by hand and others i can't.

remember, the soil community can be much
larger than the plant root itself, tilling can
destroy it. i try to avoid digging as much as
possible, but do it when i have good reasons
(burying organic materials is one of them).

for any bare soil spaces that are on a slope
i would terrace them or make ridges to prevent
my nutrients from escaping. the ridges can be
planted with alfalfa or other green manure
sources and they can also act as a refuge for
friendly garden bugs like the ladybug. you'll
also find worms in there around those roots as
the plants get established.

straw is better than nothing. yet if you
can find other things to mulch with that will
improve your soil more. chopped alfalfa (right
as it is blooming) is great, plus birdsfoot trefoil
and clovers are the three biggies that grow well
for me in the green manure patch.

rabbit nerds are also excellent, whatever else
you can scrounge for organic materials is usually
a great help as long as it doesn't come from a
feedlot where drugs are used.

any composted food scraps. keep a worm farm
and use the worms/pee/poo under your heavy
feeding plants.

also, growing cover crops during the off season
will help. winter rye and winter wheat turned
under in the spring, cowpeas, hairy vetch, ...

if you have room for growing any nitrogen fixing
trees you can also chop some of those leaves for
using as mulches.

my other main amendment is partially decayed
wood chips. turns into excellent humus and
brings along a whole range of fungal hyphae.

i've been amending patches around the garden
and you can see the gradual improvement over the
years, but when you have a large space and not
much to amend with each season it can take several
seasons for much to be obvious.

like one garden i am getting into shape that we
combined with another last year will probably take
two or three more years just to get some kind of
worm populations established.

http://www.anthive.com/test/project/worms/

notice the last picture in that... the garden
that used to be very poor throughout and had that
poor soil is probably a few shades darker now as
i've kept adding my garden scraps, organic materials
like leaves and twigs, the partially decayed wood
chips, etc.

also:

rotational planting stretches any amending
(different plant groups use different soil
nutrient profiles). most of the patches will
not be amended each season other than the burying
of whatever is grown there (which disturbs 1/10th
or less of most garden patches).

Ma is not into leaving mulches on the soil so
that does defeat some of my gains, but even still
the garden soils are gradually improving. a cover
crop of radishes, buckwheat or turnips are fairly
quick but very helpful. any time you can harvest
sunlight and turn that into plant materials or
exhudates given off by roots for your soil community
to eventually digest it is a big gain.


songbird