Permaculture soil project

[DebEspace]

yes go for it. this sounds like a good bit of nature loving that's going to bring forth the best strong plants.

[tripmcgill]

How punk rock of you! Right on Ray, keep it up they will understand one day.

[permaculturedesigner]

Assume you have no manure (other than your own, which may not be enough). Also assume any decent topsoil has been scraped away. In these cases I would trench to get up enough of the mineral (B horizon) and mix that with the wood chips. Follow with an innoculated legume (I suggest yard long bean). the missing nitrogen is fixed from the air.

[permaculturedesigner]

After a few years of this you'll have decent soil. If you have winter, plant crimson clover underneath the beansabout 1-2 months before first frost. Great flowers in spring, holds soil in place over winter, drys up and is done. Ready for more beans.

[headacherack]

find somebody with horse stables...scoop it up with permission...keep bagged for a month or two to let acid cool down and .......smoke it! just kidding but it makes great fertilizer...also look into upside down tomtoes grown from 5 gal. plastic buckets....you'll like that.

[jadedheron]

Hey everyone! I just wanted to plug an all around amazing book "Mycelium Running" by Paul Stamets. Topics range from building rich soil w/ mycelium + woodchips to using oyster mushrooms to "mycoremediate" toxic soils to all the technical instructions and lots of pictures. Inspiring + a great resource

[kmhaggie888]

I've owned this book (Mycelium Running, by Stamets) for about 6 months now and I can honestly say it's way more useful than the bible as far as helping people goes, just amazing and innovative work. I myself add several things to soil to insure it is of the quality for explosive growth. I will detail above in a seperate comment.

[HooDaBabba]

dried woodchips and other carbon based material (dead leaves, etc) mixed with high nitrogen material at a ratio of 30:1, and kept moist at the consistency of a wrung-out spunge can give you a hot berkley compost. Turn it once after about 3 or 4 days...and then once every two days after that...at the end of 18 days, you'll have awesome compost.

[meerak69]

I agree with one of the previous posts, you are gonna need more than inoculated wood chips to grow food. I would mix some compost in with the native soil on site then inoculate that, add some worms, then use the wood chips for a nice water-conserving, sun-blocking, microorganism feeding, weed suppressing mulch. The woodchip mulch will leach nitrogen from the top of the soil so some pee (diluted to about 1 part pee to 6 parts water) should balance things out and feed at the same time. -K

[barney61180]

if you can find mustard seed at your local asian store. chuck some of these on top. This will help to lock nitrogen into the soil and also allow the works to work through the wood chip. all the best. I'm set on buying some land to do the same as you, peace.

[saphiresingold]

Hi, greetings from Wiesbaden Germany

you could walk around the very area surrounding the site and fetch tiny little portions of soil and plants from spaces that look endangered.

That way you get a large amount of localy adopted genetical value in a very eco-friendly way...

thanks for you effort

[mdk3504]

i'm planing on planting bamboo in my backyard and i did some research and i hope you realize that bamboo is very invasive and be sure not to let it get outta hand

[NoirMusic]

Leave it piled and just dump your kitchen scrap and anything green in it, keep it damp and rotated and whenever practical just take a leak on it. Urea is 45% nitrogen...

[ecolodave]

sure doing the good work man, but woodchips do not by themselves create perfect soil. is it green wood? decomposition must be quite advanced so that adding woodchips won't monopolise all the nitrogen in the soil during decomposition - in case you're wanting to grow other things! Why not inoculate the whole heap with mycelium and then spread the rich compost over the soil?

[GrebBear]

Hey man,

Sorry, I don't currently have allot of knowledge about agriculture ... but, I know you are heading down the right path. We will learn from you and through you, because your putting it out there. Good on you, looking foreword to your continued growth (ptp).

; -)