I've been doing SFG in raised beds for a couple of years now, and
there is now an accumulation of left over roots in the beds from past
plantings. I imagine they compost at some time, but do they compost
quickly in the beds? Is it OK to leave the old roots in the beds or
are they going to hinder roots/plants of future plantings?

Thanks.

Mike wrote:
I've been doing SFG in raised beds for a couple of years now, and
there is now an accumulation of left over roots in the beds from past
plantings. I imagine they compost at some time, but do they compost
quickly in the beds? Is it OK to leave the old roots in the beds or
are they going to hinder roots/plants of future plantings?

Thanks.

The old roots will be fine. They will break down, worms will eat them etc,
pull out any that are obvious before you replant but generally don't worry.

Who or what is SFG?

David

In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

Mike wrote:
I've been doing SFG in raised beds for a couple of years now, and
there is now an accumulation of left over roots in the beds from past
plantings. I imagine they compost at some time, but do they compost
quickly in the beds? Is it OK to leave the old roots in the beds or
are they going to hinder roots/plants of future plantings?

Thanks.

The old roots will be fine. They will break down, worms will eat them etc,
pull out any that are obvious before you replant but generally don't worry.

Who or what is SFG?

David

My guess is "Square Foot Gardening" seems to go with raised beds.

I have found too many roots causes the soil to be too light. Taller
heavier plants may fall over and uproot themselves (like tomatoes). Some
plants just love the lighter soil (like celery). Could add the lighter
soil to the compost pile and put in the older compost in the beds. This
may help in recharging (if thats the right word) the nutrients to the
lighter soil.

--
Enjoy Life... Dan

Garden in Zone 5 South East Michigan.

Why don't you just pull them out? Aren't you amending the beds each new
year with compost, new organic matter and amendments? I would think you
would need to dig the new amendments in and the old roots would be in the
way. In an organic bed, the organic material is consumed by natural
biodiversity, so new material should be added. This isn't rocket surgery.

"Mike" wrote in message
...
I've been doing SFG in raised beds for a couple of years now, and
there is now an accumulation of left over roots in the beds from past
plantings. I imagine they compost at some time, but do they compost
quickly in the beds? Is it OK to leave the old roots in the beds or
are they going to hinder roots/plants of future plantings?

Thanks.

In article ,
"Thos" wrote:

Why don't you just pull them out? Aren't you amending the beds each new
year with compost, new organic matter and amendments? I would think you
would need to dig the new amendments in and the old roots would be in the
way.
Yeah, well, that may be what you think, but some of us think that you
destroy soil structure and reduce humus in the soil when you dig or
rototill.
In an organic bed, the organic material is consumed by natural
biodiversity, so new material should be added. This isn't rocket surgery.

"Mike" wrote in message
...
I've been doing SFG in raised beds for a couple of years now, and
there is now an accumulation of left over roots in the beds from past
plantings. I imagine they compost at some time, but do they compost
quickly in the beds? Is it OK to leave the old roots in the beds or
are they going to hinder roots/plants of future plantings?

Thanks.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html

"Mike" wrote in message
...
I've been doing SFG in raised beds for a couple of years now, and
there is now an accumulation of left over roots in the beds from past
plantings. I imagine they compost at some time, but do they compost
quickly in the beds? Is it OK to leave the old roots in the beds or
are they going to hinder roots/plants of future plantings?

Thanks.

Fukuoka farming - leave the roots in the soil to break down. Spread above
soil grown plant detritus on the surface of the soil and your friendly worm
mates will take care of the rest. Job done, sit back and enjoy a bottle of
home brew cider.

rob

Billy wrote:
In article ,
"Thos" wrote:

Why don't you just pull them out? Aren't you amending the beds each new
year with compost, new organic matter and amendments? I would think you
would need to dig the new amendments in and the old roots would be in the
way.
Yeah, well, that may be what you think, but some of us think that you
destroy soil structure and reduce humus in the soil when you dig or
rototill.

That is a completely new concept for me.

But I have soil that is less than nutritious and I work in amendments
just to loosen it up. My best soil last year gave me 2" carrots.

Leaving that aside, is there some layering in biological activity
that gets disturbed by digging? I'm just trying to wrap my mind around that.

Jeff

In an organic bed, the organic material is consumed by natural
biodiversity, so new material should be added. This isn't rocket surgery.

"Mike" wrote in message
...
I've been doing SFG in raised beds for a couple of years now, and
there is now an accumulation of left over roots in the beds from past
plantings. I imagine they compost at some time, but do they compost
quickly in the beds? Is it OK to leave the old roots in the beds or
are they going to hinder roots/plants of future plantings?

Thanks.

Thanks for all comments.

SFG is Square Foot Gardening. I do pull most of the roots, but the
finer ones inevitably get left behind. Like I mentioned, I've only
been doing this for a couple of years so just looking for advice and
trying to learn from the folks here with the experience and
knowledge. I am trying to be "natural" by not using artificial
fertilizers or pesticides (compost instead), so thanks George for
introducing "Fukuoka Farming" - that's a new one to me and I'll check
it out.

In article
,
Mike wrote:

Thanks for all comments.

SFG is Square Foot Gardening. I do pull most of the roots, but the
finer ones inevitably get left behind. Like I mentioned, I've only
been doing this for a couple of years so just looking for advice and
trying to learn from the folks here with the experience and
knowledge. I am trying to be "natural" by not using artificial
fertilizers or pesticides (compost instead), so thanks George for
introducing "Fukuoka Farming" - that's a new one to me and I'll check
it out.

The book you may want to peruse is "The One-straw revolution" by
Masanobu Fukuoka. If inclined check out Wendell Berry who wrote the
preface. Not so much a how to but a why for kind of book. Leading to
more why for and how to adventures.

Have Fun!

Bill

In article ,
Jeff Thies wrote:

Billy wrote:
In article ,
"Thos" wrote:

Why don't you just pull them out? Aren't you amending the beds each new
year with compost, new organic matter and amendments? I would think you
would need to dig the new amendments in and the old roots would be in the
way.
Yeah, well, that may be what you think, but some of us think that you
destroy soil structure and reduce humus in the soil when you dig or
rototill.

That is a completely new concept for me.

But I have soil that is less than nutritious and I work in amendments
just to loosen it up. My best soil last year gave me 2" carrots.

Leaving that aside, is there some layering in biological activity
that gets disturbed by digging? I'm just trying to wrap my mind around that.

Jeff

Better people have said it, than I, so let me use their words.

Gaia's Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture
(Paperback)
by Toby Hemenway
http://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-S...ulture/dp/1603
580298/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271266976&sr=1-1

p.74
Earthworms are the most visible and among the most important primary
decomposers, so let's watch one as it feeds on our leaf.

The earthworm grabs a leaf chunk and slithers into its burrow. With its
rasping mouthparts, the worm pulverizes the leaf fragment, sucking in
soil at the same time. The mixture churns its way to the worm's gizzard,
where surging muscles grind the leaf and soil mixture into a fine paste.
The paste moves deeper into the earthworm's gut. Here bacteria help with
digestion, much as our own gut flora helps us process otherwise
unavailable nutrients from our food. When the worm has wrung all the
nutrients from the paste, it excretes what remains of the leaf and soil,
along with gut bacteria caught in the paste. These worm castings coat
the burrow with fertile, organically enriched earth. Before long, hungry
bacteria, fungi, and microscopic soil animals will find this cache of
organic matter and flourish in walls of the burrow, adding their own
excretions and dead bodies to the supply.

Fueled by the leaf's nutrients, the worm tunnels deeper into the ground,
loosening, aerating, and fertilizing the soil. Rain will trickle down
the burrow, threading moisture deeper into the earth than previously.
The soil will stay damp a little longer between rains. In spring, a
growing root from the oak tree will find this burrow, and, coaxed by the
easy passage and the tunnel's lining of organic food, will extend deep
enough to tap that stored moisture. The worm, with its fertile castings
and a burrow that lets air, water, and roots penetrate the earth, will
have aided the oak tree and much of the other life in the soil. Worms
are among the most beneficial of soil animals: They turn over as much as
twenty-five tons of soil per acre per year, or the equivalent of one
inch of lopsoil over Earth's land surface every ten years.

Meanwhile, on the surface, the feasting inver-

p.75
tebrates continue to shred the leaf into tiny bits‹or comminute it, in
soil-specialist parlance. Comminution exposes more leaf surface‹tender
inner edges at that‹to attack by bacteria and fungi, further hastening
decomposition. Also, the small army of mites, larvae, and other
invertebrates feeding on the leaf deposit a fair load of droppings, or
frass, which also becomes food for other decomposers (a microscope
reveals that many decomposing leaves are thickly covered with frass,
which adds up to an enormous amount of fertile manure). Any leaf bits
that aren't fully digested un their first passage through a decomposer's
gut are eaten again and again by one tiny being after another until the
organic matter is mashed into microscopic particles. Soil invertebrates
such as worms and mites don't really alter the chemical composition of
the leaf‹their job is principally to pulverize litter. Their scurrying
and tunneling also mixes the leaf particles with soil, where the
fragments stay moist and palatable for others. In some cases, the
animals' gut microbes can break down tenacious large molecules such as
chitin, keratin, and cellulose into their simpler sugarlike components.
The real alchemy‹the chemical transformation of the leaf into humus and
plant food‹is done by microorganisms.

As the soil animals reduce the leaf to droppings and microscopic
particles, a second wave of



The soil food web. 1°=primary decomposers; 2°=secondary; 3°=tertiary.

p.76
bacteria, fungi, and other microbes descends on the remains. Using
enzymes and the rest of their metabolic chemistry sets, these microbes
snap large
molecules into small, edible fragments. Cellulose and lignin, the tough
components of plant cell walls, are cleaved into tasty sugars and
aromatic carbon rings. Other microbes hack long chains of leaf protein
into short ammo acid pieces. Some of these microbes are highly
specialized, able to break down only a few types of molecules, but soil
diversity is immense‹a teaspoon of soil may hold 5,000 species of
bacteria, each with a different set of chemical tools. Thus, working
together, this veritable orchestra of thousands of species of bacteria,
fungi, algae, and others fully decompose not only our sample leaf but
almost anything else it encounters.

Besides breaking down organic matter, these microbes also build up soil
structure. As they feed, certain soil bacteria secrete gums, waxes, and
gels that hold tiny particles of earth together. Dividing fungal cells
lengthen into long fingers of hyphae that surround crumbs of soil and
bind them to each other. These mini-clumps give microbially rich soil
its good "tilth": the loose, crumbly structure that gardeners and
farmers strive for. Also, these gooey microbial by-products protect soil
from drying and allow it to hold huge volumes of water. Without soil
life, earth just dries up and blows away or clumps together after a rain
and forms clay-bound, root-thwarting clods.

Microbes don't live long‹just hours or days. As they die, larger
microbes and soil animals consume their bodies. Also, predators abound
in the soil ecosystem. Voracious amoebae lurk in films of soil moisture,
ready to engulf a hapless bacterium. Mold mites, springtails, certain
beetles, and a host of others feed on the primary decomposers and are
called, in turn, secondary decomposers. Larger predators feed on the
secondary (and some primary) decomposers that have come to our leaf.
These are centipedes, ground beetles, pseudoscorpions, predatory mites,
ants, and spiders, also known as the tertiary decomposers.
------

Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web
Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis
http://www.amazon.com/Teaming-Microb.../dp/0881927775
/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206815176&sr= 1-1

Chapter 1
.. . . Soil life produces soil nutrients
When any member of a soil food web dies, it becomes fodder for other
members of the community. The nutrients in these bodies are passed on to
other_ members of the community. A larger predator may eat them alive,
or they may _be decayed after they die. One way or the other, fungi and
bacteria get involved,_ be it decaying the organism directly or working
on the dung of the successful_ eater. It makes no difference. Nutrients
are preserved and eventually are retained in the bodies of even the
smallest fungi and bacteria. When these are in_the rhizosphere, they
release nutrients in plant-available form when they, in_ turn, are
consumed or die.

.. . . . A healthy soil_ food web won't allow one set of members to get
so strong as to destroy the web._ If there are too many nematodes and
protozoa, the bacteria and fungi on_ which they prey are in trouble and,
ultimately, so are the plants in the area.
And there are other benefits. The nets or webs fungi form around roots
act_ as physical barriers to invasion and protect plants from pathogenic
fungi and_ bacteria. Bacteria coat surfaces so thoroughly, there is no
room for others to attach themselves. If something impacts these fungi
or bacteria and their numbers drop or they disappear, the plant can
easily be attacked.

Special soil fungi, called mycorrhizal fungi, establish themselves in a
symbiotic relationship with roots, providing them not only with-physical
protection but with nutrient delivery as well. In return for exudates,
these fungi provide water, phosphorus, and other necessary plant
nutrients. Soil food web populations must be in balance, or these fungi
are eaten and the plant suffers.

Bacteria produce exudates of their own, and the slime they use to attach
to surfaces traps pathogens. Sometimes, bacteria work in conjunction
with fungi to form protective layers, not only around roots in the
rhizosphere but on an_ equivalent area around leaf surfaces, the
phyllosphere. Leaves produce exudates that attract microorganisms in
exactly the same way roots do; these act as a barrier to invasion,
preventing disease-causing organisms from entering the plant's system.
Some fungi and bacteria produce inhibitory compounds, things like
vitamins and antibiotics, which help maintain or improve plant health;
penicillin and streptomycin, for example, are produced by a soil-borne
fungus and a soil-borne bacterium, respectively.
------

Gaia's Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture
p.81
To Till or Not to Till

We've seen that organic matter keeps soil light and fluffy and easy for
roots to penetrate. What then about the mechanical methods used for
breaking up soil?

The invention of the plow ranks as one of the great steps forward for
humanity. Farmers know that plowing releases locked-up soil fertility.
Plowing also keeps down weeds and thoroughly mingles surface litter with
the soil. We do all this, too, when we drag our power-tiller out of the
garage and push the snorting beast through the garden beds in a cloud of
blue smoke.

What's really happening during tilling? By churning the soil, we're
flushing it with fresh air. All that oxygen invigorates the soil life,
which zooms into action, breaking down organic matter and plucking
minerals from humus and rock particles. Tilling also breaks up the soil,
greatly increasing its surface area by creating many small clumps out of
big ones. Soil microbes then colonize these fresh surfaces, extracting
more nutrients and exploding in population.

p.82
This is great for the first season. The blast of nutrients fuels
stunning plant growth, and the harvest is bountiful. But the life in
tilled soil releases far more nutrients than the plants can use. Unused
fertility leaches away in rains. The next year's tilling burns up more
organic matter, again releasing a surfeit of fertility that is washed
away. After a few seasons, the soil is depleted. The humus is gone, the
mineral ores are played out, and the artificially stimulated soil life
is impoverished. Now the gardener must renew the soil with bales of
organic matter, fertilizer, and plenty of work.

Thus, tilling releases far more nutrients than plants can use. Also, the
constant mechanical battering destroys the soil structure, especially
when perpetrated on too-wet soil (and we're all impatient to get those
seeds in, so this happens often). Frequent tilling smashes loamy soil
crumbs to powder and compacts clayey clods into hardpan. And one tilling
session consumes far more calories of energy than are in a year's worth
of garden grown food. That's not a sustainable arrangement.

Better to let humus fluff your soil naturally and to use mulches to
smother weeds and renew nutrients. Instead of unleashing fertility at a
breakneck, mechanical pace, we can allow plant roots to do the job.
Questing roots will split nuggets of earth in their own time, opening
the soil to microbial colonization, loosening- nutrients at just the
right rate. Once again, nature makes a better partner than a slave.

-----

So my advice would be to dig your soil the first year, especially if it
is clay soil, and mix in your organic material, and other amendments
(rock phosphates, wood ash, charcoal left from wood fires, not
briquettes) and let that be your last time to dig. Afterwards, practice
what is called "lasagna gardening", a.k.a. sheet mulching. If you can,
plant "green manure" over winter. Some place are too cold for this, and
my sun dips below the tree line in Dec. Another alternative is using
perennial white clover as a living mulch. The mulch, added or grown,
will be decomposed and turned into soil humus, which will create the
"tilth" that you need.

Anyway, that's the way it looks to me.

If you want to see how my garden is coming along see:
alt.binaries.pictures.gardens.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html

In article , "George"
wrote:

"Mike" wrote in message
...
I've been doing SFG in raised beds for a couple of years now, and
there is now an accumulation of left over roots in the beds from past
plantings. I imagine they compost at some time, but do they compost
quickly in the beds? Is it OK to leave the old roots in the beds or
are they going to hinder roots/plants of future plantings?

Thanks.

Fukuoka farming - leave the roots in the soil to break down. Spread above
soil grown plant detritus on the surface of the soil and your friendly worm
mates will take care of the rest. Job done, sit back and enjoy a bottle of
home brew cider.

rob

ANd then **** on any deserving fruit trees ;O)
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html

"Thos" wrote in message
m...
Why don't you just pull them out?

Pulling plants out by the roots can disturb the soil structure, so it should
be avoided if possible. I usually cut my big plants down to a stub, and let
the roots rot over the winter, then carefully remove any big lumps if I need
to use that bed for seeds later. If I am using it for transplants, I just
leave the leftover roots in and plant around them.
--S.

Jeff Thies wrote:
Billy wrote:
In article ,
"Thos" wrote:

Why don't you just pull them out? Aren't you amending the beds
each new year with compost, new organic matter and amendments? I
would think you would need to dig the new amendments in and the old
roots would be in the way.
Yeah, well, that may be what you think, but some of us think that you
destroy soil structure and reduce humus in the soil when you dig or
rototill.

That is a completely new concept for me.

But I have soil that is less than nutritious and I work in
amendments just to loosen it up. My best soil last year gave me 2"
carrots.

Carrots are not a good starting point for hard or compacted soil.

Leaving that aside, is there some layering in biological activity
that gets disturbed by digging? I'm just trying to wrap my mind
around that.
Jeff


There are a number of things going on and that includes changes to
biological activity and physical changes to the soil.. Broadly, too
frequent working of the soil tends to destroy the structure of it.
Frequently tilled soils lose water and organic matter more quickly, in large
part due to exposure to the atmosphere. See "no dig", "no till", "zero
till" etc for details. Using power equipment is more likely to do damage
than hand tilling.

Here is one ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-till_farming

The purists never till but this can take a long time to develop deep soil
with good tilth particularly on compacted or degraded soils. Some
compromises that work quicker are to only till when establishing the bed or
to only till at major renovations, eg annually or less often.

It follows from trying to get and maintain good tilth that you do not
compact the soil, so you make your beds such that you never need to walk on
them or wheel the loaded barrow over them.

David

In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

Jeff Thies wrote:
Billy wrote:
In article ,
"Thos" wrote:

Why don't you just pull them out? Aren't you amending the beds
each new year with compost, new organic matter and amendments? I
would think you would need to dig the new amendments in and the old
roots would be in the way.
Yeah, well, that may be what you think, but some of us think that you
destroy soil structure and reduce humus in the soil when you dig or
rototill.

That is a completely new concept for me.

But I have soil that is less than nutritious and I work in
amendments just to loosen it up. My best soil last year gave me 2"
carrots.

Carrots are not a good starting point for hard or compacted soil.

Leaving that aside, is there some layering in biological activity
that gets disturbed by digging? I'm just trying to wrap my mind
around that.
Jeff


There are a number of things going on and that includes changes to
biological activity and physical changes to the soil.. Broadly, too
frequent working of the soil tends to destroy the structure of it.
Frequently tilled soils lose water and organic matter more quickly, in large
part due to exposure to the atmosphere. See "no dig", "no till", "zero
till" etc for details. Using power equipment is more likely to do damage
than hand tilling.

Here is one ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-till_farming

The purists never till but this can take a long time to develop deep soil
with good tilth particularly on compacted or degraded soils. Some
compromises that work quicker are to only till when establishing the bed or
to only till at major renovations, eg annually or less often.

It follows from trying to get and maintain good tilth that you do not
compact the soil, so you make your beds such that you never need to walk on
them or wheel the loaded barrow over them.

David

I concur with all David said. I'd just like to add that the nurturing
depth of the garden beds will increase with time, but this can be
accelerated in the first season with double digging. It will be your
first and last time to dig. This step isn't necessary to reap the
rewards of "lasagna gardening/sheet mulching".
http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s-5-19-934,00.html
http://www.wikihow.com/Double-Dig-a-Garden
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html

"Bill who putters" wrote in message
...
In article
,
Mike wrote:

Thanks for all comments.

SFG is Square Foot Gardening. I do pull most of the roots, but the
finer ones inevitably get left behind. Like I mentioned, I've only
been doing this for a couple of years so just looking for advice and
trying to learn from the folks here with the experience and
knowledge. I am trying to be "natural" by not using artificial
fertilizers or pesticides (compost instead), so thanks George for
introducing "Fukuoka Farming" - that's a new one to me and I'll check
it out.

The book you may want to peruse is "The One-straw revolution" by
Masanobu Fukuoka. If inclined check out Wendell Berry who wrote the
preface. Not so much a how to but a why for kind of book. Leading to
more why for and how to adventures.

in my vege garden fukuoka translates to leaving weeds (not yet at seed
stage) and crop detritus in the garden beds. No wholesale clearing away to a
compost bin. It may be move to another garden as mulch but will stay in the
vege garden system itself. Somethings, like tomatos, I do move to another
part of the section every year but that is simply due to the possibility of
disease. I mulch the gardens through the year with grass, leaves, spent crop
residue etc.
Not fully fukuoka but I have lifted some of his techniques. Why move it if
it breaks down in situ.

rob