Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Actually we do have something on how humus is formed, as I posted before.
http://www.soilsecrets.com/SoilEcologyandtheSoilFoodWeb.pdf
http://www.petrik.com/PUBLIC/library/ups.html#humus

Laying the compost materials as a ground cover is called sheet composting.
http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/homecompost/methods.html#4

You said
>Using finished compost as the cover would simply supply less of what  
>was originally used as composting ingredients, therefore less for  
>nature to use, therefore less humus.

Are  you advocating not composting, just turning everything under? Or
leaving everything on top?  As we've seen there are drawbacks to turning
under, one of which is, the more cultivation, the more soil humus is
exposed to air which oxidizes and breaks it down, leaving soil less
moisture absorbent and more prone to leaching of nutrients. 

I don't have any way of knowing if Kombucha Tea is safe, never tried it.
Unexplained Severe Illness Possibly Associated with Consumption of Kombucha
Tea -- Iowa, 1995
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00039742.htm


paul tradingpost@lobo.net

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. 
--Henry David Thoreau 
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 7/2/2006 at 7:23 AM Nancy Babbitt wrote:

>Paul,
>
>I'm sorry.  I think I was feeling defensive last night.
>
>Here's my ideas:
>
>If composting does not produce humus, then it's a breakdown process  
>similar to composting that does, but obviously SOMETHING is missing  
>in the composting process that does happen in nature (which does  
>produce humus).
>
>I believe that possibly more humus would be formed if we imitated  
>nature.  Laying the compost materials as a ground cover, as happens  
>in nature.
>
>Using finished compost as the cover would simply supply less of what  
>was originally used as composting ingredients, therefore less for  
>nature to use, therefore less humus.
>
>BTW,  I make/use Kombucha Tea, have you ever heard of it?  Tea  
>vinegar, the microbes produce this amazing structure right from the  
>water, tea, sugar and air.  The structure is referred to as a SCOBY  
>(a Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast).  It's like mother of  
>vinegar, it's kind of rubbery, jell-like, and quite substantial.
>
>Kefir grains are similar to Kombucha SCOBY, but are used to ferment  
>milk.  They too, are quite substancial/durable.
>
>Both of these cultures protect the environment they live in from  
>decomposing by acidifying it.
>
>Microbes are amazing in what they can produce.
>
>I understand that humus is still a mystery to science.  No one has  
>figured out how it forms, and hardly know what it is, (broad  
>definition), but once formed, it has keeping qualities (does not  
>break down easily).  Thinking about humus always brings my mind to  
>the SCOBYS and Kefir grains.
>
>Nancy