permaculture

[venaurafarm <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>]

On 3/7/2013 11:32 PM, Chris Carnevale wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm wondering who has used rock dust as a soil amendment and what your
> results were?  Has anyone found a better freely available micronutrient
> source?  How does seaweed compare to rock dust?

The quarries will give you a MSDS which will contain a chemical analysis 
if their rock dust

1)
I had hundreds of tons of it brought in from 4 different quarries: 
basalt/feldspar/volcanic tuff ?, pyrophyllite, granite.
2)
Also a few hundred tons of various manures and compost
3)
bought a few hundred bags of:
rock and colloidal phosphate, greensand, azomite

bought a skid loader and used it to mix 1, 2, 3 together into several 
very large mountains
spread it all out on the land in 5' wide strips where raised beds were 
to be created
tilled all of it in and hilled/bedded to create large wide flat raised 
beds that are still where I created them
I now use no and minimum till methods to grow crops on these beds

I could write a short book on this and have in the past posted elaborate 
descriptions of the process I followed from start to finish
which evolved as work was done
created a finely tuned system of raised beds in gardens located in 
various locations in my fields
all this after terraforming the land to reduce grade and prevent 
nutrient/water loss and erosion

here are pix of the equipment I used
https://picasaweb.google.com/103223907782626104592/TractorEquipment
https://picasaweb.google.com/103223907782626104592/VenauraFarm

I hired other folks to do all the loader and tractor work;
my job was keeping the equipment working and hauling fuel
and of course making sure work was done exactly according to plan
down to the last detail

quarry rock dust or siltation pond fines are nearly always free;
you pay a trucker to bring it to your property - get tandem or triaxle 
loads for maximum cost effectiveness