On Sun, 14 Mar 2004 22:38:32 GMT, "stan the man"
wrote:

how do you keep up soil nutrients?
Stan

Mulch. Lots and lots of mulch, which is essential to keep the moisture
in the soil in my climate anyway. I am partial to a mixture of
home-made compost, cow manure and lucerne hay. I also often bury
kitchen scraps directly into the garden to compost in situ, which
encourages the worms.

Someone has started a business recently in my area, selling composted
stable dressings (a well-composted combination of horse manure,
lucerne hay and wood shavings). They were clever enough to give me a
sample bag, and I'm impressed by what I see. I think I'll be trying
some of that soon.

I am also partial to using mushroom compost as a base and building the
garden up a few inches, because I am on a heavy clay soil. This means
that there is a lot of soil nutrition anyway.

Geodyne