Subject: Re: [permaculture] sheet mulch beds for CSA production?
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 10:43:10 -0400
thanks for the replies,
re: >"Hugelkultur is nothing more than making raised beds
filled with rotten wood."
as far our brush piles go, i had thought about using them in this
way, and had read about the practice before. we are going to
experiment with a little of it today, on a couple of beds, but there
are a couple of practical issues for us here; the woody material is
really woody- very hard, and inflexible. very tough stuff. (someone
said related to honeysuckle, does this make sense? it has a lovely
scent when cut, smells something like elderberry) and the pasture
roses are just a torture to try to deal with
we will have to put a lot of labor into cutting the material up into
small enough lengths to get them to lie down, that is the main
drawback. it is less labor to use the other materials for mulch
as far as rock dust goes, does anyone have any suggestions for
discovering the mineral content of any particular source?
our local quarry is crushing 'blue granite' and will load the dust
from the slurry pond at 4 dollars a ton
we recently got the soil test back from our local extension office,
and we seem to be in pretty good shape with our existing soil. there
are already good levels all around of P, K, Mg, and Ca.
all the extension office recommends adding is 120 to 140lbs per ac
of nitrogen, (we'll get from compost and manure) and 20 lbs per acre
of P205 phosphate (whatever that is)
i think we'll be pretty good
i'm googling "blue granite" right now but not coming up with much useful yet