Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[bruce smith <cityhomesteader@gmail.com>]

Harvey Ussery wrote:

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Bruce, could you elaborate of the production of your leaf mould. It 
sounds as if you are making it as a pure "leaf meal" as opposed to using 
the leaves as the carbon component in composting? Do you do any further 
processing other than heaping it and letting time and the microbes and 
fungi do the rest?
  

I basically just allow the Fall leaves to compost directly on site as they are dumped.  I've added finished worm compost complete with red worms to the center top of the heap also. Finding that it has just the write amount of Microbes and Soil Fauna and Flora to set the pile going.  I also Use some of the leaves along with Straw Bedding to make a Huge  5'X5'X5' bin full of compost every fall. Remember I get 2 dump truck loads of leaves most times. BIG loads.. The soil in the area that I have the leaves dump off at is teaming with all the microbes and soil life that preexisting piles have created.  The leaves break down 95%  from one fall to the next. I'm harvesting completed leaf mold now to feed my raised beds along with a Load of Miniature horse donuts.

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Have you used the leaf mould to make seed starting mixes? I noted that 
you use it in place of peat moss for soil improvement. I abandoned peat 
moss years ago for my seed starting mixes, because of sustainability 
concerns. I now use coir (short fiber coconut husk) instead, but would 
sure like to come up with a local alternative that doesn't require 
shipping from the other side of the planet.
  

I've not made my own seed starting mix. I know that you can and some have, but I have a humid climate and need a soil less mix..
I use Industrial Promix greenhouse grade. That is my choice and a large bag last me 3 years.

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The wine caps--did you inoculate the chips with a purchased spawn kit, 
or did they volunteer? I've tried to get wine cap stropharia going twice 
now with purchased spawn, with no luck. (Ironically, though, several 
volunteered last year, the first I'd ever seen here.)

  

The wine caps were purchased and it took them 2.5 years to yield and they did well for 2 years before I killed the beds by suffocating them.

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~Harvey