Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

Paul,

Points well taken. It always depends on what is readily available where you are. But when making the comparison of compost versus cover crops and mulch, the latter isn’t only superior in labour-efficiency, but also involves fewer losses of nutrients, especially N which volatizes quickly. With compost, a lot of nutrients are lost in particular during high-temperature composting. Well-cured compost of plant residues, great for improving soil, is useless as fertilizer.

Cover crops can of course be tricky. Last autumn I tried to grow clover, which had worked fine the previous year. I tried three times: first it was too dry, then the ants got the seed and finally it was too late. So now I’m stuck without a cover crop and very little compost into the bargain.

 

Regards,

Dieter Brand, Portugal

  

TradingPostPaul <tradingpost@riseup.net> wrote:

> Cover crops can take less work than compost, I agree. But the question of
> which is better, I think, depends on what you need for what purpose. I
> don't have time this year for cover crops, and manure is available nearby
> and it's free. It's already there and if I don't use it then it's wasted. I
> had vetch mixed with buckwheat but the rabbits dined on it during the dry
> months. The beauty of buckwheat is it'll be winter killed where vetch would
> have to be mowed for most plantings. I'm also mulching with aged manure,
> and a foot of snow melting on the mulched beds won't hurt either. 
>
> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
>
> On 2/9/2007 at 7:04 PM Dieter Brand wrote:
>
> >Gloria, Ken,
> >I absolutely agree, increasing the organic component in soil is the key to
>
> >success. Regarding the ways
>  of doing this, direct methods are better than 
> >indirect ones since they involve fewer losses in terms of labour and 
> >nutrients and therefore reduce emissions; e.g., compost is better than 
> >manure, cover crops and mulch are better than compost. This may be further
>
> >fine-tuned by the selection of cover crops, for example vetch with rye,
> >and 
> >the use of mulch, for example covering a green mulch with a shredded woody
>
> >mulch.
> >
> >Regards,
> >
> >Dieter Brand, Portugal
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >Livingontheland mailing list
> >Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> >http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Livingontheland mailing list
> Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland

---

Don't pick lemons.
See all the new 2007 cars at Yahoo! Autos.