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  • From: Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] from N-starvation to mulch approach
  • Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 23:32:47 -0700

I getting ready for another wave of mulching in zone 1-2 areas.. appliance store boxes, purchased straw, local horse manure, and rock powders and sea weed. My source of arborist chips hasn't been coming through.

As i begin to plant up sheet mulched areas, I am finding that straw mulch seems to call for herbaceous plantings, and lends itself better to seeding. While woody mulch calls for woody or rhizomatous plantings or conifer forest understory spp. I just don't like plugging perennial divisions into the woody mulch because of the nitrogen issue, but live-staking cuttings seems fine. And infill with self seeding species (ever popular parsley, calendula, etc..) seems like it makes more sense in straw mulches compared to woody mulches. It seems like there is a need to align your mulch approach and your target community composition. Is this a pattern others have found or thought more about?... it seems like it might relate somehow to the distinction between moder and mull humus types common in soil ecology literature and perhaps whole associations of plants adapted to different soil carbon environments (lots of our local Ericaciaea (blueberry family) fruits seem to like woody moder soils, but most of our edibles are more field species... mull soils)... any thoughts for plants that like to seed into woody soils? (then theres mushrooms...)

Paul Cereghino
Olympia, WA






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