In article ,
"Terry Coombs" wrote:
"Billy" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Terry Coombs" wrote:
"Billy" wrote
Being reclaimed forest, you may have acidic conditions. Turning the
soil
the next couple of years to incorporate organic material, and to deepen
the growing zone (top 2 ft.) will let some of the CO2 blow off, raising
the pH. Then I suggest you go to no till. Joel Salatin says that 12
worms/ sq. ft. will give you 3" of soil per year. Organic material (5%
by weight, or 10% by volume) will encourage the worms.
--
Remember Rachel Corrie
http://www.rachelcorrie.org/
Welcome to the New America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg
Shades of Ruth Stout ! Actually , Billy , what you suggest is my basic
plan . This fall I'll be tilling some straw or hay in , followed by more
manure/compost before planting next spring . Every pass with the tiller
gets
more rocks up and deepens the loosened soil a little . Light
supplemental
feedings with 3/13 only if necessary . Since the ground has a slope , as
I
till I'll be terracing this area .
We got between 4 and 6 inches of rain last night , looks like more of
the
same tonight/tomorrow . That terracing thing helped a lot , only had a
couple of minor washouts and the county road into our place was washed
out
in 5 places this morning ... .
--
Snag
Bet that 13/13/13
got washed away ...
Clay may have held on to part of it, but that is part of the beauty of
organic fertilizers, they are more likely to stay put.
--
Every hole/hill I planted a seed or start in was a 50/50 mix of soil and
manure/compost . The row stuff all got a side dressing of same m/c on the
uphill side . Got 2 bags of straight manure to be added as the season
progresses . So far weeds haven't been a problem .
There are two basic groups of cover crops: legumes and grains. You may
choose to plant one or the other, or combine the two types, depending on
your goal.
Grains, such as oats, BUCKWHEAT and winter RYE, are very good for adding
bulky organic material to the soil (increasing water retention).
Legumes contribute nitrogen in addition to organic matter. Where soils
are depleted of nitrogen, a nutrient essential for plant growth,
leguminous cover crops help restore fertility.
=====
In addition to all the living organisms you can see in garden soils (for
example, earthworms), there is a whole world of soil organisms that you
cannot see unless you use sophisticated and expensive optics. Only then
do the tiny, microscopic organisms‹bacteria, fungi, protozoa,
nematodes‹appear, and in numbers that are nothing less than staggering.
A mere teaspoon of good garden soil, as measured by microbial
geneticists, contains a billion invisible bacteria, several yards of
equally invisible fungal hyphae, several thousand protozoa, and a few
dozen nematodes.
The common denominator of all soil life is that every organism needs
energy to survive. While a few bacteria, known as chemosynthesizers,
derive energy from sulfur, nitrogen, or even iron compounds, the rest
have to eat something containing carbon in order to get the energy they
need to sustain life. Carbon may come from organic material supplied by
plants, waste products produced by other organisms, or the bodies of
other organisms. The first order of business of all soil life is
obtaining carbon to fuel metabolism‹it is an eat-and-be-eaten world, in
and on soil.
Most organisms eat more than one kind of prey, so if you make a diagram
of who eats whom in and on the soil, the straight-line food chain
instead becomes a series of food chains linked and cross-linked to each
other, creating a web of food chains, or a soil food web. Each soil
environment has a different set of organisms and thus a different soil
food web.
Most gardeners think of plants as only taking up nutrients through root
systems and feeding the leaves. Few realize that a great deal of the
energy that results from photosynthesis in the leaves is actually used
by plants to produce chemicals they secrete through their roots. These
secretions are known as exudates. A good analogy is perspiration, a
human's exudate.
Root exudates are in the form of carbohydrates (including sugars) and
proteins. Amazingly, their presence wakes up, attracts, and grows
specific beneficial bacteria and fungi living in the soil that subsist
on these exudates and the cellular material sloughed off as the plant's
root tips grow. All this secretion of exudates and sloughing-off of
cells takes place in the rhizosphere, a zone immediately around the
roots, extending out about a tenth of an inch, or a couple of
millimeters (1 millimeter = 1/25 inch). The rhizosphere, which can look
like a jelly or jam under the electron microscope, contains a constantly
changing mix of soil organisms, including bacteria, fungi, nematodes,
protozoa, and even larger organisms. All this ³life" competes for the
exudates in the rhizosphere, or its water or mineral content.
At the bottom of the soil food web are bacteria and fungi, which are
attracted to and consume plant root exudates. In turn, they attract and
are eaten by bigger microbes, specifically nematodes and protozoa
(remember the amoebae, paramecia, flagellates, and ciliates you should
have studied in biology?), who eat bacteria and fungi (primarily for
carbon) to fuel their metabolic functions. Anything they don't need is
excreted as wastes, which plant roots are readily able to absorb as
nutrients. How convenient that this production of plant nutrients takes
place right in the rhizosphere, the site of root-nutrient absorption.
At the center of any viable soil food web are plants. Plants control the
food web for their own benefit, an amazing fact that is too little
understood and surely not appreciated by gardeners who are constantly
interfering with Nature's system. Studies indicate that individual
plants can control the numbers and the different kinds of fungi and
bacteria attracted to the rhizosphere by the exudates they produce.
During different times of the growing season, populations of rhizosphere
bacteria and fungi wax and wane, depending on the nutrient needs of the
plant and the exudates it produces.
Soil bacteria and fungi are like small bags of fertilizer, retaining in
their bodies nitrogen and other nutrients they gain from root exudates
and other organic matter (such as those sloughed-off root-tip cells).
Carrying on the analogy, soil protozoa and nematodes act as ³fertilizer
spreaders" by releasing , the nutrients locked up in the bacteria and
fungi ³fertilizer bags." The nematodes and protozoa in the soil come
along and eat the bacteria and fungi in the rhizosphere. They digest
what they need to survive and excrete excess carbon and other nutrients
as waste.
Left to their own devices, then, plants produce exudates that attract
fungi and bacteria (and, ultimately, nematodes and protozoa); their
survival depends on the interplay between these microbes. It is a
completely natural system, the very same one that has fueled plants
since they evolved. Soil life provides the nutrients needed for plant
life, and plants initiate and fuel the cycle
by producing exudates.
======
Your garden soil shouldn't be more than 10% (by volume), or less than 5%
(by weight) organic material.
Garden soil should be 30% - 40% sand, 30% - 40% silt, and 20% - 30%
clay. You can check your soil by scraping away the organic material on
top of the ground and then take a vertical sample of your soil to 12 in.
(30 cm) deep (rectangular or circular hole). Mix this with water in an
appropriately large glass (transparent) jar. The sand will settle out
quickly, the silt in a couple of hours, and the clay within a day. The
depth of the layer in relationship to the total (layer/total = % of
composition) is the percent that fraction has in the soil.
Garden soil needs a constant input of nutrients, i.e. carbon, e.g. brown
leaves, and nitrogen, e.g. manure in a ratio of C/N of 25 - 30. This is
the same ratio you will want in a compost pile.
-----
Let it Rot!: The Gardener's Guide to Composting (Third Edition)
(Storey's Down-to-Earth Guides)
by Stu Campbell
http://www.amazon.com/Let-Rot-Compos...580170234/ref=
sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294901182&sr=1-1
p.39
Compostable Material Average C/N
Alder or ash leaves ........................ 25
Grass clippings ........................... 25
Leguminous plants (peas,
beans,soybeans) ........................... 15
Manure with bedding ....................... 23
Manure .................................... 15
Oak leaves ................................ 50
Pine needles .............................. 60-100
Sawdust................................. 150-500
Straw, cornstalks and cobs ............... 50-100
Vegetable trimmings ...................... 25
Aged Chicken Manure**.......................7
Alfalfa ................................. 12
Newspaper............................. 175
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http://www.motherearthnews.com/organ...ts-system.aspx
--
Remember Rachel Corrie
http://www.rachelcorrie.org/
Welcome to the New America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg