Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

Barbara,

If you use fresh manure, don't plough it under.  You can plough under 
composted manure, leaves or any other OM.  But uncomposted material need to 
go on top.  I would use a layer of fresh manure topped by a layer of leaves 
or other OM to keep the manure from drying out.  Tests have shown that using 
fresh manure is about 2 to 4 times more effective than using composted manure 
because you loose a lot during heap composting.

Dieter 

--- On Tue, 12/7/10, Barbara Money <bmoney9@verizon.net> wrote:

> From: Barbara Money <bmoney9@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] learning curve
> To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Tuesday, December 7, 2010, 7:06 PM
> We save wood ash from our main
> heating source, and some of it ends up in the garden.
> Theoretically, in place of lime for raising pH. It does have
> small pieces of charcoal in it, and it contains potassium.
> why is excess K bad? Someone mentioned that it ties up
> calcium, ...OK, got that. But why is it in the common
> fertilizer "formula"? What does it do for the plant?
> 
> Regarding added organic matter: we have tons of leaves,
> llama manure, and may get some aged horse manure and fresh
> hen manure. How should I put theses on the garden this fall?
> Last year we got a load of oak leaves and ran them through a
> shredder or mowed over them in place, which was a lot of
> work. I mixed horse and llama manure with the shredded
> leaves in the beds. This year it is a mix of oak, ash,
> hickory, and maple, not yet shredded. I still have some
> uncovered piles of shredded oak leaves //that have not
> broken down all last winter and this summer.// I'm wondering
> if it's worth the bother to shred the leaves, and just use
> them as a weed-suppressing mulch once the veggie seedlings
> are up. Maybe layering the manures on top of the leaves
> (shredded or not) over winter so nutrients leach through
> them to help them break down? The shredds I put in the
> garden beds did break down, mostly (I hand-cultivated them
> in 2-3 inches, not deep--the tiller went deeper); maybe
> contact with soil is what they need?
> 
> Don't yell at me for tilling, I don't want to anymore! But
> Hubby, who studied horticulture in the 70s, still thinks
> soil must be mixed up.
> 
> Barbara M
> Foster, RI
> 
> -- "Animals Are A Gift"
> 
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