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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Seed starting medium (was: No-till manureapplication)

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "Laura McKenzie" <laurabrownmckenzie@worldnet.att.net>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Seed starting medium (was: No-till manureapplication)
  • Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2006 16:40:48 -0500

We use straight compost until I see that I'm running out. Then I resort to part compost and part peat and part perlite using as much compost first and then adding 5 parts peat to about 1 part perlite. I recycle seed starting medium (what ever kind I use) where there are bits left after lifting the plants out and I add straight compost to that to rejuvenate it.

Remember I said "well aged"... perhaps completely finished compost would be a better description of the compost I use.

Compost is too dear to not use optimally so I use it under mulch not as a mulch.

I noticed you asked about growing enough mulch. I'm having that problem here. Last year I grew as much rye as I could putting it even in the paths between raised beds to harvest it for mulch. The rye didn't mind my stepping on it too much and every little bits counts here. Its was a good thing to do though pulling it all out by hand was tough. My gardens are on steep slopes and I don't have a scythe and the raised beds are probably too close to each other. I waited too long and had to pull it while I was flowering, causing massive allergy problems.

I plan to overseed my front lawn (a steeply sloped 1/2 acre planted in dwarf apple trees) in rye for the winter to see if I get anything out of doing that. And I have a few bare spots in the back yard I can plant it in as well. We scrounge for as much compostable plant material as we can get though I'm very picky about taking anything out anyone else's yard given the disaster I had with herbicided straw a few years ago. I also use red clover and vetch, growing as much as possible of both all winter.

Everything gets used as mulch including poison ivy (PI) and weeds. I simply toss those on a brush pile and wait three years or so before using mulch from that pile. I have a lot of brush piles tucked in the forest here and there. I'm looking for a source for kudzu after reading a book by Charles Wilbur on tomato growing.

Laura
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Laura's Homeschooling, Garden, and Genealogy Site
is found here: http://home.att.net/~ekyorigins
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