Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

You make a lot of sense Dieter. But under our wetter conditions mulching 
with manure makes for beautiful soil just a few months later. We can not let 
our heavy animals poach the meadows in wet winter so they are stabled on 
straw or wood shavings. They are cleaned out regularly which adds up to huge 
volumes and sometimes it is a lot easier to spread that mass straight at the 
place where months later crops will be grown than getting it up on the 
compost heaps. Extra advantage is that little weeding is needed at Spring 
planting time. The weeds take revenge in summer though when every single 
seed that fell on top of the mulch will germinate.and boom.
john

> In my case it is about 1 to 10; i.e, I use mulching materials from 10 
> acres to feed 1 acre of vegetable beds.  But that is probably not typical 
> since I live in an arid climate with poor soils.  The ratio is bound to be 
> much lower in regions with more rain and better soil where more biomass is 
> produced per acre.  Also, mulched gardening is unusual for arid regions. 
> Traditional farming in this like most other arid regions uses bare soil 
> cultivation together with manure from goats which can survive on shrub 
> land during the summer when grasses and other annuals have dried.  But no 
> matter whether we use mulch or manure, there is a constant transfer of 
> fertility from the fields to the garden.  The question really is; what is 
> more efficient: manure or mulch?  But I guess the answer will very much 
> depend on local conditions.
>
> Regarding the question of compost versus manure, I think manure always 
> ought to be composted, while plant residues should be returned as surfaces 
> mulches for in-place composting whenever possible because heap composting, 
> especially high temperature composting, always involves a loss of 
> nutrients.  I only use heap composting for plant residues when I don’t 
> have enough water to keep the mulched area wet because without humidity 
> the mulch isn’t going to decompose.  It requires less water to keep a 
> compost heap wet than a mulched area.
>
> Dieter Brand
> Portugal
>
>
> --- On Thu, 9/23/10, pbunch@cox.net <pbunch@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > From: pbunch@cox.net <pbunch@cox.net>
> > Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] TWO AGRICULTURES, NOT ONE, By John Michael 
> > Greer
> > To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" 
> > <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
> > Cc: "Dieter Brand" <diebrand@yahoo.com>
> > Date: Thursday, September 23, 2010, 3:03 PM
> > Interesting observation. I wonder
> > what the ratio between intensive:extensive growing has to
> > be. Also what differences might be required in compost
> > verses manures as means of transporting the nutrients. I
> > suspect that P, K and trace minerals would become critical
> > as legumes can supply the N. It would seem that human
> > waste recycling would become a critical component.
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Livingontheland mailing list
> Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland