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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Heap Composting versus Field Composting

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  • From: Tommy Tolson <healinghawk@earthlink.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Heap Composting versus Field Composting
  • Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 18:51:41 -0500

Dieter Brand wrote:

Some of the above may to open to debate. In particular,
point 3. above probably depends very much on the climatic
conditions. Under wet conditions a mulching layer will
disintegrate quickly into the soil, while during dry conditions
it is far more difficult to know how much of the plant residues return to the soil and how much will volatize into the air.
Does anybody have information to clarify this last point?

In the early observation phase, I journeyed to the soul of the land I worked in Santa Rosa, California and asked what it needed now. I got, "Clean me up and keep me covered." The land had a lot of trash on it that we cleared off. It's not ever okay to leave land bare. I knew about mulching with straw, so we did that while we remodeled a 1943 redwood-framed farm cottage. Later, after the earthworks was done too early and too hastily, a type-one error that never got right, we did a lot of sheet mulching, amending adobe soil with calcium (bagged shell flour) to break it up, running plastic timed drip irrigation lines beneath the cardboard. In August, while the adobe was like concrete everywhere else, I could peel back the cardboard and bury my arms up to the elbows in the berms where sheet mulching worked best, after only one application. I was at work on the guilds as my marriage (to a woman who refused to take the design class) collapsed. This was wine country, Mediterranean climate, nine months dry, three months wet. We irrigated with potable well water because it's what we had.

Tommy Tolson
Austin, TX




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