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permaculture - [permaculture] deep mulch in Mediterannean climates. don't forget Jean Pain

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  • From: Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] deep mulch in Mediterannean climates. don't forget Jean Pain
  • Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:41:30 -0800

gavinraders@gmail.com wrote:

But care to say why you think applying deep mulch is a "mistake" in mediterranean climates? I live and practice permaculture in california and I have watched deep mulches do wonders for buidling soil and productivity. Especially when partnered with urine fertilizers, compost teas, and comfrey/nettle extracts.
Okay, can't resist, so forgive me but (heh-heh), if you are irrigating and fertilizing, then it's not a Mediterranean climate any more, right?

I've seen several instances where pastures, orchards, and other less-managed (non-irrigated) areas in Med climates were mulched blindly, and the result was wildfire in the dry season with loss of trees (mulch is flammable), loss of native forb species that could no longer come up through the mulch, and loss of ants as soil decomposers, greatly slowing return of organic matter to the soil. Often in drier Med climates ants replace worms as principal decomposers. Mulch favors worms over ants, and can actually interfere with dryland soil building. Sometimes. There are times when mulch works, and Jean Pain's method appears to be one of them. The cookie cutter is not a permacultural tool, and YMMV.

I was irritated at the following

http://www.holisticmanagement.org/n9/Education/InPractice_Archives/integratingpermaculture.pdf

where the author claimed that permaculture didn't work as well as holistic management, because, they said, Pc recommended mulch and other temperate/humid tropic methods in Med climates, while HM had much better techniques for brittle landscapes. They even admit using temperate and tropic strategies, calling that permaculture (the DM says: "permaculture designs for specific sites and climates") I don't know whether these folks ever took a PDC, but they had a weird idea of what permaculture is. There is nothing in HM that conflicts with permaculture, but they operate on different levels.

I agree with Skeeter about clear subject headings. However, there is an awkward transition period between threads (which I think my last post falls in; I thought about it) where if you are segueing between topics, changing the heading moves the post to a new slot in the archives, and just where that should occur is hard to say. People following the old thread won't see the new one.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com





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