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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Guild assembly and dynamic accumulators

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: yarrow@sfo.com
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Guild assembly and dynamic accumulators
  • Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 23:34:50 -0700

Kourik talks about cutting back the dynamic accumulators if they grow under a plant that needs the minerals they mine, or digging them into the soil if they grow elsewhere. He says, "Grow accumulator plants in or around your landscape to gather nutrients for use in the edible areas."

I grow my comfrey mostly next to the compost bins and harvest the foliage regularly to make compost tea and add to the compost bins. I see in Kourik's chart that comfrey accumulates Si, N, Mg, Ca, K, and Fe, so this year I will add some harvested comfrey leaves to the tomato beds, too. I had some partly composted horse manure to use, so I added some to the comfrey in the past month. One of my herb books (Bremness, Complete book of herbs) claims that comfrey has a 10-ft. or longer tap root!! and suggests feeding it with a bucketful of manure in spring and late summer for a higher nutritional yield.

Other dynamic accumulators I encourage include Borage (accumulates Si and K, and attracts bees), Lemon balm (accumulates P), Plantain (accumulates Si, S, Ca, K, Fe, Cu), Mullein (accumulates S, Mg, K, Fe), an ornamental dock (accumulates Ca, K, P, Fe), and Yarrow (accumulates N, K, P, Fe). I let the borage and yarrow grow in a few places but keep the rest confined to a single patch and pot up extras to give away. Some parsley (accumulates Mg, Ca, K, Fe) has wandered into the raspberry patch to get out of the full sun where it was originally planted, and I have been gradually moving other herbs to the less-intense areas.

Another plant I grew last year as a compost crop is cardoon, though it has been taking more space than I have available, so I may replace it. All plants contribute some minerals, so right now I have a covered 5-gallon pail full of early-spring-weeds compost tea brewing. I didn't want to put the weeds into the compost bin (the Cardamine and Poa annua had already gone to seed, the mallow and raspberry have tenacious roots), so I thought I'd experiment. I may end up adding it to the compost bins, though, in case the drowned weed seeds remain viable. (The raspberry leaves make a pleasant tea, and I wish I'd saved them.)





Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net> wrote:
I had a friend that told me that that snappy fruit flavor that is hard
to find in homegrown apples is a mix of magnesium (requiring good cation
balance), and sulfur (which is caught up more in soil poor
water-biologic cycling. Robert Kourik's book (Designing and maintaining
you edible landscape naturally, 1986) has a list of dynamic accumulators ...





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