Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Welcome, Angus, and what do you do with growing in your climate?

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 11/17/2009 at 6:14 PM Angus MacLeod wrote:

>Has anyone tried hugelkultur? It uses big pieces of wood in various
>stages of decay and, according to what I've read, promises a payoff for
>many years to come.
>
>--- On Tue, 11/17/09, Harvey Ussery <harvey@themodernhomestead.us> wrote:
>
>From: Harvey Ussery <harvey@themodernhomestead.us>
>Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Wood does belong in the soil?
>To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing"
><livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Received: Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 11:25 AM
>
>> Well, I started this list to learn more, to have my views challenged
>> or improved, as well as to spread what's out there on the Internet.
>> You guys have tossed out the conventional wisdom on wood in soil and
>> apparently your results speak for themselves. Good. My limitation is,
>> (at my age) I have to plan in terms of soil building for *this market
>> season* - not the following seasons. Which means fast composting. That
>> is, learning and passing on techniques many people can do to get
>> growing right now, typically with little space and funds, as food
>> hazards multiply and unemployment keeps spreading.  ~Paul
>
>Of course wood ready to return to its "home" belongs in/on the soil. Why
>do you suppose Somebody gave fungi a place in the world? But there are
>practical considerations, especially as you noted re the extended
>breakdown.
>
>Don't know if anybody's suggested it in this thread, Paul, but if you
>don't have time for any composting process that doesn't pay off *this*
>market season, and if you don't have the space to devote to the slower
>breakdown of ligneous materials, consider this: Surely you provide paths
>to work the garden. If these paths are permanent, you could cover them
>with as much wood chips as you can get your hands on. All the benefits
>of mulching, doesn't matter how long decomposition takes, but once it
>does, just scoop up the resulting "compost" and spread into adjacent beds.
>
>Another likely benefit (speculating here): Big boost in mycorrhizal
>fungi, which partner with many crop species.
>
>~Harvey
>
>--
>Harvey in northern Virginia
>www.themodernhomestead.us
>
>A person dependent on somebody else for everything from potatoes to
>opinions may declare that he is a free man, and his government may issue a
>certificate granting him his freedom, but he will not be free. He is that
>variety of specialist known as a consumer, which means that he is the
>abject dependent of producers. How can he be free if he can do nothing for
>himself? What is the First Amendment to him whose mouth is stuck to the
>tit of the "affluent society"?  ~Wendell Berry
>