Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

A pity that you did not a more scientific experiment Richard. In this we try to keep track of one parameter at a time and we simply use controls.

Half a bed with and half a bed without. Comfrey tea on it's own or charcoal soaked in it for a time. This to make sure that it is either the comfrey or the charcoal that has the effect.

 

There is one point though that all of us have to keep an eagle's eye on. There are several pesticides being used these days that will all but kill any attempt to grow vegetables if you use compost or hay or straw or manure that has seen these pesticides. They pass straight through a horse but will remain active in the horse manure for at least ten years.

Before we import large inputs here we soak hay or manure and try a few tomato seeds in there for normal germination. If there is no germination or the seedlings look stunted and abnormal then don't touch that manure with a ten foot pole.

 

And it is here that charcoal could have it's most useful effect. Charcoal does bind to man-made toxins very well. Reason why it is used in filters and gas masks.

john

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: richard green

To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 11:23 PM

Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] the learning curve

 I wish to add to the line concerning the use of charcoal, I live in north florida and have very sandy soil. In my back yard I have a small vegetable garden approx. 1000sqft. that I've had for the past three years. The first year the yields were nothing spectacular but good. Use of COF as Steve Solomon recommended, also chicken manure and some horse manure used in moderation. Leaf and garden clipping compost from a former garden site. The second year the production yields were way down both summer and winter gardens. The first half of the third year was not good either. I happened across several articles concerning charcoal, having nothing to lose I tried adding it. I crushed ten forty pound bags of hard wood charcoal I soaked the crushed charcoal in a liquid solution of 1 part dry chicken manure, 1 part leaf compost and 1 part comfrey tea (the part being a 2lb plastic coffee container I use for measurement) I put the dried parts in donated panty hose and soaked in 25 gal. of tap water maybe 2 weeks prior to use. This being a liquid fertilizer I commonly use. I am now into the last month of the third year and the yields thus far have exceeded my wildest expectations. I am growing the garden I had wished for. Simply put the ground/sand has come alive. Inoculate the charcoal prior to amendment to the soil.

Rick

 

> From: dhondt@eircom.net
> To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2010 18:47:48 +0000
> Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] the learning curve
>
>
> > and I mean SOME of this information is good as a backup reference, but
> > that information is widely available, any gardening book will contain it,
> > I got a different one years ago at the thrift store for 1.69 and its been
> > infinitely more helpful. "
>
> I followed Steve Solomon's list for a few years and eventually had to give
> up because the man is playing only for an adoring public and does not stand
> for much critique.
> Some things that really annoyed me :
> - he has no thoughts about gmo's and advises use of gmo seed meal as
> fertilizer.
> - He likes the use of pesticides such as roundup
> - he has this idea that potassium is deadly and thinks that all gardens are
> already over-supplied with this mineral
> - he is dead against building up a soil with compost or organic matter
> because he is convinced this breeds gazillions of crop eating pests apart
> from bringing even more unwanted potassium in.
>
> -what broke this camels back was his dishonesty in connection with the use
> of charcoal as a soil amendment. I have been experimenting with charcoal for
> at least 15 years and have never seen it do any good in the garden and I
> have come to the conclusion that it is extremely bad for the planet to burn
> woods down to charcoal just for soil amendments.
> Privately Steve Solomon admitted to me that he was experimenting with
> different concentrations of charcoal in his cannabis beds and that he could
> see no positive results.
> Publicly on the list he ridiculed my position stating that there was such a
> hype going about charcoal that it simply had to be true. Maybe so of course,
> how could ten million lemmings be wrong?
> john
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Livingontheland mailing list
> Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland

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