From what I've gathered it takes decades to build up only a few centimeters of fertile topsoil. That's why soil erosion is such a crime. But it looks like the no-dig garden is moving in the right direction!
It does take a long time if you are not importing a huge amount of material, as in this type of no-tig method. Or even if I tilled in that amount of compost it would really speed up soil building.
When we built a new community garden from scratch we had what was purported to be 50% compost and 50% loam delivered. We spread about 10 in (25 cm) over ground that was severely compacted from years of truck traffic and parking on dirt. That first season we couldn't grow anything unless we amended with NPK fertilizer steadily throughout the season at an unexpectedly high level. Midway through the second season the microbiome had developed and we had the normal fertility and healthy soil we might expect from the original mixture. Our need for fertilizers decreased to a normal and expected level. Within a couple of years the hard pan underneath had softened after 10 years you'd never know what it was like when we started.
That sounds like what I would expect to happen (based on my own experiences), which makes sense. I was thinking more of the longer term for this garden, but didn't focus enough on what would be needed to supplement things for the first season, until that microbiome kicks in properly.
@@REDGardens We were a relatively inexperienced group of urban gardeners. I don't think any of us understood the importance of developing a microbiome. Instead we were incensed when a soil test revealed almost no nitrogen present. I think we thought compost equals nitrogen which of course is totally untrue if the compost is well finished. Sadly we may have blamed the soil vendor.
My no dig bed has been going for four years now and its just starting to show nutritional benefits. Ive put different types of compost on each year to vary the nutrition in the soil ie chicken compost, coffee compost, general waste compost, hopefully all has contributed to balance out the growing powers of the soil...I find your channel very informative for us gardeners,thanks.
Thanks for the great education you provide! I'm still in the planning and preparation stage for my first-time backyard Canadian garden next year, and your videos are very helpful. God bless Friend.
We have found bulk bought compost to be the same so we adopted the approach of planting all seeds/bulbs/seedlings with a handful of well aged homemade vermicompost (which we refer to as "magic") This had a dramatic effect on the life within the soil and compost, which we verified with using a microscope (think; Elaine Ignham, soil web), which then had a very positive effect on the productivness of the compost and beds.
some mushroom spores might be a good addition to the compost to make it breakdown faster. also maybe something like the initial crop being something like peas or a cover crop might be better in the long run
I think his own green garden residue or chicken manure would be a better addition to his low N compost. He apparently has plenty of carbon. He doesn't have a balanced finished compost.
Yeah the fungi would definitely help digest that woody material quicker as long as it's nice and moist. Spent mushroom blocks from fungi farms perhaps or leaf mold from a wooded area. The latter probably has more appropriate species with less density and should probably not be harvested at the scale the black plot would need to see a shift within a year
@@dmiller9786 yeah but it's hard to get good sources of nitrogen. RED gardens has shown us how challenging it can be to scale up and keep things relatively local
this is correct. your soil amendments are too hot and need to be inoculated with microbes and mycelium first. 3 months to cook hot soil amendments minimum.
Very interesting to see the difference in outside soil vs poly-tunnel soil! I feel like a major part might be the cardboard layer blocking growth further into the ground and worms not being able to mix the dirt together. My small garden has seen great success with adding worms!
Excellent video, thank you! I had similar problems with the compost I used this year, on a much smaller scale. It was like fertility was completely locked up and inaccessible to the plants. Your videos about this issue help me understand what's been happening. I want to love this no-dig compost method, but I've had a hard time with the compost I've bought in so far. I'll be curious to see the development of this tunnel space next year. Thanks for sharing!
While the fertility in your compost might be an issue, it also could be an issue with your plants' root system. Have you tested your soil for nutrients/pH levels? If not, most communities have an extension service that offers soil testing for a small fee. Also, I follow Danny and Wanda on Deep South Homestead channel, and he has spoken about how we are experiencing extra gamma radiation that can impact the root growth of plants. He is slowly switching to using more liquid fertilizer (still natural), that delivers nutrition in a form that's easier for the plants to absorb via roots AND leaves. Research the JADAM (sp) method of growing - natural traditional Asian farming methods. Hope this helps
It seems a lot of people have issues with not great compost. And as @Classic rock Lover suggests, compost alone may not get around some fundamental issues in your soil.
Another thought taking lead from other gardeners, it might have been beneficial to have a frontier, throw-away cover crop to get microorganism life in the soil going and then doing the main crop. Making soil is like being a land tenant and planting things ends up being like opening rental units, better to get the below the ground life going so it can help with decomposition. Otherwise it's just dirt with NPK and PH levels.
I would highly recommend mulching over the compost with straw. Whenever I lead compost uncovered it doesn't break down properly and stunts plants. When I add straw it brings in worms that are attracted to the carbon of the straw and they mix it all up and add their castings. The straw also adds an insulating most layer to the compost allowing microbes to actually thrive in the upper layers which would otherwise be too dry and harsh.
It may be dry cardboard acted as a nearly impermeable barrier between the layers of soil, compost and amendments. Separation may have interfered with creating a microbiome with the desired fertility. I found it most effective to really soak cardboard - most effective is soaking it in a tub and laying it down. It is still effective in preventing weed growth. That encourages a much more rapid air and water penetration and the decomposition of the cardboard into soil. That physical continuity in the media may be necessary for a fertile microbiome to develop.
The cardboard did remain dry in some places, but under the driplines it was wet, and seemed to start to decompose reasonably quickly, perhaps too quickly. I needed it to last long enough to prevent the weed regrowth, which was an issue in a few places. Soaking would have been interesting option to explore.
Good video, thanks. I use fall leaves on top of all my beds! It keeps moisture inn and the micro/macro biologi goes amok under the leaves. My greenhouse is from 1962 all glass 200m2, farmed with mineral fertilizers from 1962-2017. I have only fed the soil with compost, green grass and leaves since I took over and never looked back. The soil was 100% dead when I took over in 2019 Leaves are cheap.. Best Regards Per in Norway.
In my raised beds I always take into account how happy my worms are. I think of them as gardening partners. Happy worms = great soil. They can survive a gentle turning of the soil, but not the intense churning you get with a tiller. Worms love cardboard and I am surprised that your cardboard did not seem to bring them up into your municipal compost.
I've just followed the policy that throwing lots of organic matter on the top of the soil will feed the fungi and other life in the soil, and with no-dig that is what you are actually growing. The soil, not the plants. The theory is that if your soil is alive and well-fed, the plants you put in will be in the best environment they can be in and no teas or fertiliser will be needed. In our poly tunnel (much smaller than yours, hehe) we used what was available for free on our allotment. Also wanting to go no-dig but having essentially red clay as a base soil, we put a 4-inch layer of quite well rotted wood chip for moisture retention and nutrients and covered that with autumn leaves to a total depth of about 8 inches. Surprisingly that gave us a good crop of tomatoes the first year (the wood chip was very well rotted) but with quite a lot of Tomato blight. That Autumn/Winter, we covered it again with a good amount of leaves and sprinkled it with Mycorrhizal fungi spores. The next year was also a good crop with less blight. This last year, more leaves were added and a sprinkling of chicken pellets, continuing the trend, the crop was better still with almost no blight. This year we plan on a top dressing of mushroom compost to cover the leaves, as they don't seem to be rotting down as quickly as I'd like. With the beds kept moist using soaker hoses gravity fed from water butts, the top of the soil was almost always dry, but a good amount of water was available to the plants. Overall, very happy with the results and we'll be continuing with no dig for the foreseeable future.
I have typically added municipal compost annually at around 6 tonnes a year, and find that municipal compost being high heat treated tends to be highly carboniforous, and as such is locked up for some time, much as you have seen. The best solution i have found is to purchase for delivery the previous september, and piling to cold compost, but added bought in earth worms to each pile. I then spread in late march or early april. This approach tends to allow the earthworm population to increase sufficiently that when spread on beds it allows the nutrients to become steadily bioavailable during the growing year.
@@FireflyOnTheMoon Well indeed - the 'green waste' compost made by local authorities in windrows contains a lot of shredded wood, and they use a primarily bacterial decomposition, fast and hot... and little to no maturation time, so they might have a turn around time of just a few months. I'm bringing in 100kg food waste a week and composting that (with shredded twigs and sawdust, card, etc) and leaving it 2 to 3 years before using or selling it. Mine is very soil-like, with 'crumbs' not the shredded wood-look. I assume mine is higher quality!!
We also put a lot of compost as a top layer, and we see same problems. I think that all organic matter has to be wet,, then, either you keep watering the top layer all the time, either you cover it with straw or the like. Puting organic fertilizers in drip irrigation also works for us
My experience with municipal compost is the same as yours, 3 years until it releases any nutrients. Best to use it as carbon in your compost piles. Your native soil looks to be very carbon poor and your high pH points to this deficiency as well. To build your soils downward I'd suggest that you use a year to grow a crop of soil. Grow soil? Yep, plant daikon radish along with peanut (you wont get any peanuts to harvest) or your favorite "fixer" Grow this crop as you would your tomato or anything else with the amendments so they grow well. Mow the plants down in the fall leaving the chopped plants and add some worms and a little compost layer over the top to add nematodes and other organisms. The radish will have grown deep into the soil adding fertility as it quickly rots feeding your soil biology, and worms!
Growing soil is definitely an option, though it would mean not getting a crop for that year. I think I'd rather use more concentrated amendments in this case. in my other large polytunnel I grew a big green manure crop one season early on, for the very reasons you mention, and I am not convinced it was that useful, compared to the 'opportunity cost' of not having a crop. That is partially why I decided to try the method of front loading a lot of compost and fertility with this new polytunnel, to at least get a crop out of it, only I didn't quite get it as good as it could have been.
@@REDGardens Is the 'opportunity cost' of not having a crop an economic one? If it is, I can understand why you work the amendment path. I have a friend that is trying to revive his land with regenerative cattle ranching but gets very little progress with the soil because he needs the money from the cows. I keep telling him to reduce the herd and let the soil regrow so that in a few years the land will be fertile again and he can get much more from his herd. But, he has to put his kid through university. It saddens me but I get it.
@@charlespalmer3595 It is partially an economic one. And I also think it probably more sense to grow biomass in the more abundant space outside, with less resources, and to bring the resulting compost into the polytunnel, rather than irrigating a crop in such a high value space of the polytunnel. The roots of the crops themselves can be very vigorous and can work to open up the soil quite a bit, similar to what green manure crops will do. So I guess it is a combination of stuff, partially economic, partially recognising that any crop can help to build the soil profile, and there are easier and less resource intensive ways to get fertility into a space like this. It is completely different for a large field where green manures can be a huge boost.
greetings from Croatia a hydrophobic surface was created with cardboard and compost this is solved in several ways, the simplest of which are mulching compost with straw mixing compost with river sand please keep doing what you are doing
Hello there in Croatia! Yes, some of it definitely hydrophobic, and the sections under each of the drip in the drip line was kept properly wet for the full season. A mulch over the whole bed probably would have helped keep the rest of the compost a bit less dry.
Definitely agree, moisture is probably the biggest hindrance. More nutrients, more biology, more worms would only work in the presence of moisture. Even in a small space, I can see this in my practices. I hand water, both to conserve water and reduce fungal diseases. The root zone does fine, I assume biology is active by the abundant presence of worms. The outlying areas not so much. However I do heavily mulch which enhances and conserves the soil structure and life. I garden outside and mostly no-dig. I imagine your moisture issue is compounded inside. Maybe a broad forking will speed along your transition without bringing the weed seeds to the surface. - Love your videos, lots of info and food for thought.
There was definitely not enough parts of the compost, but plenty of moisture in a significant portion of the compost under the driplines. And what surprised me was that the significant volume that was moist didn't provide enough fertility for the season.
@@brians1001 Yeah. If I had been able to greatly increase the amount of compost that was kept moist, it would definitely have helped, but I suspect not nearly. as much as simply putting all of the concentrated fertility under the compost/cardboard. To feed directly for the first year as the compost has a chance to settle in.
You ever consider ? Putting down a cover crop made for nitrogen then terminating by rolling it and adding more compost to the top . I think the roots from the nitrogen bearing plants would help loosen up the soil that was rototilled , under the cardboard. Me I’m stubborn I always double down with compost . I know those tomato plants looked horrible but I see more tomatoes off the ones that look like they’re dying.
A cover crop would help with the soil development, and more nitrogen, but at the cost of not being able to grow a crop this season. So I went with tomatoes instead, and ended up with a good crop, just dint last as long as I expected.
Just an idea being thrown out here, but I would love to see a "chicken tractor" garden some day in the mix. It's a much deeper layer of complexity to be adding for sure, but it could be worth looking into one day. Possibly even as a data colab with someone, even just for the sake of another data point.
Mentioned by others but worth reinforcing. Maybe due to the time constraints on your filming it was not obvious that there were any worms in those trenches. Worms do all the equivalent digging work in no dig gardens. They convert the nutrients into a state more conducive to the plant digestive process through their own digestion. Are there no stables in the vicinity that would let you have animal manure? Left to decompose for a couple of years and then added to your municipal compost would increase the number of worms and give a boost to the lower value compost. Another way I've seen working is by digging a hole every so often and putting in a bucket full of fresh kitchen waste (and covering it up) encourages the worms and woodlice etc to take up residence. Certainly works in deep clay soils. In short do everything you can to increase the amount of worms. Thanks for your research, and the valuable time you give to us. Bail ó Dhia ort
Yeah, I dug the trenches one day then filmed the next when there was better light. So they dried out a bit. There were some worms, but not as many as I would like. I have a lot of worms in my compost piles. I like the idea of burying a bunch of pockets of the really worm active stuff around the polytunnel to help inoculate the soil and spread the worms and other biology.
Try Trench Composting. Bottom up instead of Top down. Do it 3 or 4 months before you plant. I have been trench composting in Japan for over 10 years. Never had problems with nutrient deficiencies. Layer it like Lasagna. Organic matter, compost, dirt, and cow manure. Then repeat.
That’s a lot of information to digest, Bruce, and I would have loved to have Charles Dowding comment on this! But two things I have that helped aeration/fertilization/speed up composting are my abundance of earthworms and moles (regrettably).
So much of compost seems to be highly concentrated in ground wood. My home compost with lots of scraps seems much more powerful. I think your right though it just need some seasons to break down and water will help speed that up .
Thanks for your candid reporting. My two cents. The compost wasn't finished. it would have been a good mulch, which it seems to have become. The compost was in a layer of about 3" that was mostly dry (hard to tell though because the watering seems to have been turned off for a fairly long time). There are benefits to no-till methods but in this case it looks like an idea that might not work for some years. The transplants look to have been inserted into the bottom layer with perhaps some compost falling in around the root ball. The transplant roots had no incentive to grow into the old soil so they may have grown and used up what nutrients we available to them before fizzling out. The soil below may not have offered much. I understand the need to keep weed seeds and roots out of play; it does look like the cardboard wasn't deteriorated as well as you probably expected. It looks like you've put in a lot of effort, had good to great early growth and then a disappointing finish. I don't know enough about tunnels to suggest a sound solution. It may take the three years to get the soil biology reestablished well enough to get the kind of great production that you're headed for. It's not at all the case that you are lacking in intelligence and motivation as well as having time spent researching. It's my guess that no-till is an adaptation to soil that is already producing well. I have heard of people doing outside growing who've applied no-till methods for years and found they needed to till it at least once before going back to mostly no-till; not at all sure why. I find a deep till underneath the beds to be a good way for moisture to get in very deep. Over all it looks like a good learning experience for you. I hope you find a way to a have a longer growing season next year!
Thanks! Yes, there was great results for a while, and then everything fizzled out. I hadn't checked thoroughly but most of the roots of the plants seed to have been in the soil, with some of them in the compost layer. Unfortunately I didn't get any footage of the beds when the drip line was in use, as a fair amount of the compost was moist, underneath the dripper. But I turned off the water for that last period so I wasn't really able to investigate. I figured that the whole thing will take time to really get going, at least from a biological standpoint, and there is a lot of organic matter there. And I think you are right that some of the more successful no-dig gardens are those that start on soil that is already producing well. It seems, like most things, the varying conditions and context really does introduce a lot of variables.
Thinking about the issue of the compost not getting down and mixing with the top soil underneath: Over the winter you could try buying in some worms, adding them to the rows, and then a few days later leaving a thin layer of kitchen scraps out on the surface of the soil. The activity of the worms going up to feed and coming back down to sleep/chill/whatever they do might help to blur that line between compost and top soil. Just a random, half baked thought.
Worms will help, and I wonder how differently the season would have gone if I had added a load of worms at the beginning of the season. There are some in there, and more will develop over time especially if I keep the full soil profile moist over the winter and into the spring.
Worms are wonderful workers ! About five years ago I set up two new beds on my allotment 5x1.25 metres. The soil is basically dirty sand. After sheet composting with windfall apples and self made compost , I added one kilogram of worms I bought . The result was amazing in the first year. The fertility and harvest have exceeded my expectations. Worms and windfall produce work well.
Based on my personal experience which was similar but somewhat different than yours, I would say that Richard Perkins is probably right to say that before you put the compost on the cardboard, you put a layer of composted manure to kickstart the bed. Otherwise it will take a longer time to get it going.
Can you add some of your own compost and/or a manure to balance it? I had to use a lot of bagged ‘compost’ to start my garden but then found an organic farmer selling manure based compost, so I mixed that in and at the end of the year added my very meagre amount of homemade compost. My theory being that the bagged stuff likely didn’t have much biology but the other sources would make up for it. Crop growth was pretty good even though I am still learning to garden.
@@DK6060 Yeah, adding some better compost, like my own stuff underneath the thicker layer of the lower grade stuff would probably have helped kick things off.
I had an identical experience. A year ago I put up another small polytunnel, about 100 square meters, and made deep mulched beds just like yours. The plants did terribly and I found it was due to two problems. First, the lack of bioavailable nutrients as you found. Second, the deep mulch kept the soil from warming up in the Spring. We had a wet, dark, April and even though the air in the tunnel was warm the soil stayed cold and the plants couldn't grow. I ended up having to rip out 100 large tomato starts and 100 pepper starts and replacing them. The other starts, still in pots, grew fine as the soil in the pots warmed up, being aboveground. This year I'm lightly tilling all the beds to incorporate the compost and added nutrients into the soil and in the Spring I plan to not put more compost on the beds until the soil has had a chance to warm up, probably in June or so and I'll lightly till it in again in the Fall. I couldn't believe how much you have to pay for chicken manure, we can get 20 kilo bags of similar pelleted manure for about 4 pounds, I get the fresh stuff from a local egg farmer for $30 per ton, even better but smellier.
That is a really interesting point about the mulch keeping the soil cool. I don't think I had that issue here, but defiantly observed that in my other no-dig garden outside a few years ago. Yeah, the chicken manure pellets are expensive, and I am moving away to other sources of fertility. But I still like them because they are easy to use and convenient, as well as being consistent with known fertility, which is useful for the trials I am doing.
Not sure if it's the same in your area, but I find municipal type compost is almost always very high in carbon. My current solution is to mix it with gras clippings and clean up debris in the fall and let it decompose over the winter. It's usually ready to go by the spring when I'm eager for more compost
Definitely quite high in carbon, but not as bad as some I have seen. I am looking into different ways of amending this stuff, and grease clippings would be a good option.
@@REDGardens Not sure how willing you are to use commercial food waste streams, but grease and oil are supposed to be good for a super hot/fast nitrogen addition. I haven't used it personally yet, but there are a few videos on YT about how to compost it safely. Just trying to share some possibly useful info.
@@REDGardens Everything is about scale no doubt! I'm only 💗 on 1/4 acre and I don't fertilize in cold months, so not hard to save up over winter. Might be worth trying on high tunnel tomatoes at your scale.
In my area the woody compost shown would be considered a mulch. It looks like the compost shown would heat again if provided adequate N. A small test at further composting the compost with chicken manure would be interesting. Long term it should provide good fertility. The soil analysis of the compost shows inadequacy of determining available nutrients.
I experienced a similar effect on the plants I grew in my no dig raised bed. I applied a layer of compost first year and second year on top of a native soil base with moderate organic fertilisation. The harvest yield and plant health were dissapointing. Plants stayed small and some zuchinni died due to powdery mildew in the summer heat(even though I watered regularly and mulched). I started liquid fertilisation too late when the plants started producing which was also a mistake. Next season I will definitely work my compost in the soil and add more amendments earlier. I grew my plants from starts which could have contributed to a weaker root system. I will try to find heat tolerant vegetables to grow in the summer.
@@FireflyOnTheMoonHalf of my compost was homemade and I suppose high quality, the other half was bagged potting soil wich grew decent plants in pots. I made a batch of JADAM fertiliser with weeds and seaweed to use next season. Hope it will increase the breakdown of organic matter.
@@gerrykennedy9085 I think no till just needs time, more than several years of applying thick layers of compost, microbial amendments and protecting the biology especially if you started with poor, compacted bare soil like in my case. Liquid fertilisers and teas might be an option to speed up the process.
Top soil layers dry out so bad in polys. Might need more driplines, timed to stably match the evapotranspiration rates enough to moisten the upper strata and leach down some organic matter like the rain does
I had the driplines on timer of the season, watering every night. I checked the compost and soil underneath a few times and there was plenty of moisture there. It was just that it wasn't getting to the full volume of compost. I would estimate that about half of the compost was moist enough and the other half was probably too dry, but I had though that with the huge volume of compost the half that was moist would have been enough.
Hi Bruce fertilizer isn't available to plants directly unless it's water soluble. If you don't have the biology in the soil or compost to process the fertilizer then it won't be available to the plants. Have you tried a jadam microbial solution? It would definitely help!🙏😊💚👍 You actually said most of this.👍 Watch Garden like a Viking JMS video it's easy to make.👍
After less than great results with my first couple of beds, only top dressing, I decided to deeply till in plenty of compost when making new beds. Sure, it seriously disrupts the soil ecosystem that first year, but I think it recovers within a year or two, and the overall health and productivity of those initially dug beds seemed much better. When I went back to the original beds to do the same deep digging, i found similar results to your own; far less penetration of the richer soil with a pretty distinct line. Yes, it's a lot more work, but seems to pay off very quickly, and I suspect makes for a overall more stable, diverse soil ecosystem. As always, thanks for sharing, Bruce.
Interesting observation. I have usually dug in the compost, as you had mentioned, but in this garden I wanted to see what would happen if I left it on top, as is often recommended by others. So far I am not impressed, but I figure it will be a couple of seasons before it is really developed. I am looking forward to digging the same kind of trenches in the next few years to have a look! Not having to dig it in saved time, and with virtually no weed seeds it saved even more time in the season, so there is a definite benefit there.
@@REDGardens I suspect a lot depends on the native soil. I had high hopes for the Lasagna Method on this property, but it wasn't very successful here. My soil contains quite a lot of dense clay just below the surface. Based on the runoff patterns in the rain, I think it sheds as much water as it absorbs. Digging most places only shows 10-15 cm of active top soil, then nearly impervious clay. I'm pretty sure just top dressing would work, eventually, but with the hot, dry summers we have here, the plants really need some deep roots and a reservoir of moisture to stay healthy.
@@fxm5715 Yeah, so much depends on the native soil! And the climate. I tried a version of the lasagne method years ago, and had problems, especially as it was a great habitat for slugs, and the blanket kept the soil cool for too long in the spring.
Drip irrigation is good to save water, but I think that once in a while some rain or rain simulation is useful at making things go deeper. In nature rain is irregular, and plants are really good at surviving on very little moisture. Rather than adding nutrition to the drip lines (all will sink on the same points or cones) you should try either hand watering (again rarely) by simulating rain on the soil only - and or - try some foliar applications on visibly missing nutrtion by the look of leaves. My experience with foliar is mixed, next time I will half the concentrations since some leaves can be burnt if concentration is off. But foliar can look miraculous, as I have seen positive reaction in 12-24 hours even, like the plant is stretching itself to the sun both arms open, just like that. (it happened to me with chelated manganese) the problem of a tunnel is that it blocks part of direct sunlight, so you will never get 100%.
Good points. One of the issues I have found with occasional hand watering or even sprinkler, is once the compost on the surface dries out the water runs off of it, and often ends up in places you don't want. And the dry compost doesn't get wet, it just stays dry unless there is something close to a soft rain for a long time. That is one of the reasons I stuck with he drip line, as this at least meant that a reasonable portion of the compost and soil was kept moist, and I accepted that some of the compost would be unavailable for this season.
@@REDGardens I mulch with grass clipping on top of the compost, that seems to help with drying out. Obviously extra work when toping up compost, since don't want to leave grass between layers of compost ( and the grass doesn't seem to decompose that quick )
@@REDGardens I think we have not enough worms in the soil, because I have test watered a pot with home worm castings (pure) and the water seem to moist evenly all the volume of the 3D media, it goes more than 1 ft horizontally. It is a texture problem. my actual soil is too drained and the water from dripping goes straight down. Plant can drop dead dry with a dripper nearby. I have almost no worm outside of the worm bin. Plants do not want wet, they do not want dry, they just need very little uniform moisture. like a light spray or mist or moisture in the soil.
In my experience i would never put cardboard under the compost in any poly tunnel as the topsoil dries out to quick and the cardboard under the compost stops the compost wicking up water from the earth until it has fully decomposed only use it on the outside were the rain will help dissolve the cardboard
I checked under the soil a few times, and there were dry patches like you mentioned, but under the general zone of the driplines, the cardboard was saturated and broke down fairly quickly.
@@REDGardens hi we do enjoy watching your videos I forgot to say as well that the worm population is much less in a polytunnel then an open site and there what you need to eat the cardboard as well buddy 😀
I was thinking that with the extra thick layer of compost, the top layer would serve as a mulch in the same way, leaving the abundant bottom layer to maintain moisture.
Have you heard of Elaine Ingram. She teaches you to feed the soil. She checks the soil life with a microscope. Your dark compost may be part of the problem, drawing too much heat in summer. A light color much may help. You can use grass clippings or straw. Also, if you cut the plants, leave the roots in the soil to decompose, this leaves food for the soil organisms. It is the soil organisms that allow your plants to use the ample nutrients that you have added . Plants get energy from the Sun. Energy is converted into sugar that feed soil life. Soil biology allow plants to absorb what they need. Over feeding tends to make plants bloat their cells and succumb to diseases and so on. I am studying permaculture, I think it would be right up your alley. Good luck 👍
I have been looking into Elaine's ideas, and stated to try using the microbial teas that she recommends in a limited trial this year. Not impressed yet, but still lots to learn and figure out.
The mistake you made was not mixing it all up in the first place, as you had disturbed the ground anyhow you might aswell have mixed the compost and fertiliser in with the soil. Also, i've learned over the years it's much better all round to prepare the ground before erecting the polytunnel, if you add another in the future then consider that next time. I think an amendment could have been done too. A bit of work perhaps, but taking the cover off the PT over Winter would have meant the weather would have got in and improved the soil no end. Also, you could have considered digging it all over to mix it in (during Winter) to give you something better to plant into this season. I'm well aware of 'no dig' and it has it's uses, but you have to know when to apply it and when not to.
continuously working on your soil ph may help more with nutrient availability than adding extra nutrients. in this regard, compost is a double edged sword, as it will eventually help acidify but buffers ph change when applied. sulfur or dilute phosphoric acid is what farmers use to reduce ph. careful with the latter but, it is much cheaper.
I do wonder. what the difference would be if I applied stuff like that. With this calcareous soil it would probably take a lot to shift the pH down enough, and not sure it is worth it, as I can grow great vegetables in my other gardens with this high pH.
@@REDGardens : high ph does start to lock up nutrients, like phosphorous, molybdenum, and even calcium becomes insoluble. some veggies can tolerate this more than others, brassicas being good growers even in elevated ph. others dont do as well as they could. soil testing places can advise how much sulfur or phosphoric acid to amend, based on test results. shouldnt need to guesstimate. apparently farmers in USA have started applying sulfur in last few decades, since acid rain has been mostly stopped....not that acid rain was a good thing, but it did provide with free acidity.
If you use a landscape in the pathways you hold in moister better. Try running overhead in the spring with a sholder season crop and then switching to drip once you have the summer crop transplanted.
How do you know that the chicken manure pellets are clean even though they’re organic? I’m always questioning animal by products such as blood meal, bone meal and manures. I do use my own chicken manure but I also know that all commercial chicken places in the USA give medicated feed to chickens. Then they poop out medicated manure. Great video, I loved it.
I figure anything I buy in has a chance of contaminants, as does even my own compost, and the manure from the local farms. This chicken manure is from 'organic' hens, so is likely a bit better, but no doubt still some unwanted stuff still in it. Personally, I don't worry too much about it.
@@REDGardens here in the US a ton of compost is unintentional contaminated. Seeing more and more videos posted about it. I’m trying to make as much of mine as possible with just leaf mould from the property.
i did whats called sheet mulching, many yards of nitrolized fir shavings about 2-3 inches deep, kept moist to encourage the biology breaking down and had great results with at least 4" depth below soil line. you want to create a sponge to hold moisture along with the minerals and nutrients. will do it again for a Market Garden.
May I suggest "worm towns". Dig holes 3' deep by 8" wide. File with a mixture of manure, leaves, kitchen scraps, sticks and old soil. Top 8" of rich garden soil with local worms. From Build a Better World in Your Backyard by Paul Wheaton.
Good work Bruce. Thoughtful analysis as always. Perhaps the municipal compost could be run through the ecovillage's compost bins as a carbon source & allowed to further mature that way. Likewise the high cellulose municipal compost could be infused with some nitrogen, heaped windrow fashion and turned periodically to finish decomposing. Just guessing here but I have had some success with turbocharging sluggish, small batch, compost with fish emulsion to "ignite" thermophilic decomposition. This episode was of great interest to me because I need to import several dozen m³ of inexpensive (municipal compost?) soil for my new garden in Maine, USA.
I think getting a lot more nitrogen into the compost and letting it mature for a bit more would definitely have helped. And I probably would have added in some biologically active compost tea as well, to try to bring in the decomposing organisms quickly. Adding it to the other compost systems is an interesting option, at least for helping to bulk out that compost supply. But I would be hesitant to use the mix on the surface in this way, as there always seems to be a lot of weed seeds in there. And I really liked not having to deal with the seed load in this garden this year!
I have noticed the lack of worms in your native soil. I have had really good experience with using wormcastings when growing indoors. It's a significant difference in plant health when using worms vs not. At least as I have seen. Might be something to do a large scale trial on.
Not too many worms in that soil at the moment, especially as I had let it dry out a bit, but based on my experience with the other gardens, they will increase in population with all of that compost.
This soil was completely dug over last winter, so I don't think a broad fork would have been useful this season, but perhaps it is a useful tool for future years
I have had very similar problems to you this season and in fairness the aubergine and pepper crops were quite poor. Have you ever spoken to farmers about trying to capture some of the run off from silage pits. It’s certainly high in nitrogen and would be quite easy to use as a liquid feed with your system. I suppose another method would be to fill 30 to 40% of an IBC tank with grass cuttings and top it off with rain water and then use that.
you needed to cook those amendments before adding directly to ground. add pellet mycorrhizal fungi to the compost with the amendments and put this soil into black plastic bins water these bins with water that has a bacterial inoculant and maybe some liquid kelp and some carbohydrates or sugars. then place these bins in the sun for 2-3 months minimum. 2 for warm season 3 for cold season. but dont try this in dark winter especially if you get snow and frost. basically the bacteria and the mycelium will feed on the amendments and take the heat out of the compost and you'll have a rich pre digested material to add to your compost mix. the best part of this is you grow the life in your soil before adding so you get all the enrichment of well composted soil with none of the burn from hot amendments. use the hot soil in potted plants 1:3 ration with potting mix to feed plants also. you'll stretch out your amendments ever further because you need less amendments the more bio available they are in the mix. i think you would have had better results in you polytunnel if you had directly added chelates to your watering schedule.
if you had fed your polytunnel with brewed compost teas they would have had a better time in that hot amended soil. but thats like life support until the mycelium has gotten to digest that pellet stuff.
I didn't see any roots in your test trenches. There seems to be a barrier against root penetration. In my small garden I grow arugula as a cover to get roots down deep. Plant nutrition depends greatly on the biological and fungal community in the soil which can be enhanced by treating with compost teas.
Rainwater is acidic so that's why the outdoor no dig bed had settled into the bottom soil layers when compared to the greenhouse no dig. Maybe the acidic rainwater breaks down the commercial compost into nutrient available matter quicker.
The fact that the compost layer dried out at all and that the whole tunnel was dry (depending on how you measured that) tells me that the municipal compost just got too dry and all activity in it ceased. That's why the plants ran out of nutrients (if those were bioavailable to begin with). Plants also thrive in humid air that is uncomfortable for people. So if the tunnel was a nice place for you... it was much too dry for the tomatoes. I'd start with at least doubling the drip lines to make sure that the compost mulch and the soil beneath stay consistently moist all over. This will help the microbiome to do its job and also encourage the tomatoes to grow roots into the mulch which will help their nutrient-seeking. Watering is a onerous chore but at least you can automate the vast majority of it. ps. If you're looking for a good investment into equipment, micro-sprinklers might work well in the polytunnel.
There was still plenty of humidity in the Polytunnel - it is Ireland - but I have found that when I use sprinklers to properly wet the full soil it causes problems.
Another great video. What ever happen to the composting system you had going ? Also if i may make a recommendation, i would like you to devote a section in the poly tunnel to a massive worm bin. The benefits of the castings should give the boost to your soil you have been craving
@@REDGardens made a huge difference in my garden. I have a family of 4 and all of our scraps go to the worms. I get 10-15 pounds roughly of sifted casting every other month. If you go big it will pay off, plus possible free scraps from local businesses could take it way over the top
How about adding a mulch on top of the compost? Your dust mulch reduces evaporation but requires some of the compost to be dry, slowing decomposition and making nutrients in those parts unavailable to plants. Adding a mulch on top would do the same job while allowing the compost itself to remain moist.
I was thinking that there was more than enough compost to sacrifice some of it as a dust mulch. There should have been plenty to feed the plants, if it was login to work at all.
@@REDGardens it would be. I learnt of dust mulches from your channel, and I find it counter intuitive. It's forced me to think about what a mulch is and how it keeps moisture in the soil. I think the key is to have an air gap between the mulch and soil surface. A coarse material like wood chips or straw has relatively little contact area with the soil, so when the mulch dries out not much water is wicked into it from the soil. At the same time the trapped air between the soil and the mulch maintains a high humidity to reduce evaporation from the soil. I remain skeptical of dust mulches because they lack this air gap. I would expect moisture to be continuously wicked from the soil into the dust mulch where it then evaporates. But intuition is often wrong so it would be illuminating to see this put to the test.
@@SinkingPoint I have done an experiment where I lightly hoed part of the surface of a moist bed in the gardens that was empty at the time, to create a dust mulch. And left the other part with the bed with he top surface of soil in contact with the soil below, to not break the capillary flow of water. The next day the part with the dust mulch was significantly drier and darker than the other, showing less moisture getting to the surface. And I pressed lightly on the dry dust mulch of soil in one spot, to reconnect it, and a little while later it was the same dark colour as the undisturbed section. For me this was enough to show that it at least slows down evaporation, as the water cannot flow through the loose particles. Or put another way, this thin layer had a lot of air spaces in it. The problem in my situation is keeping the dust mulch with regular light rains.
Nice discussion on front loading fertility. I’ve recently learned how important reducing compaction is for making good use of fertility and plant nutrition uptake. Broadforking, for example. Do you also use comfrey plant to make fertilizer/micronutrients?
I have heard the same from other growers, though I think many of them work with soils that are reasonably high can clay, which can compress with very little air penetration. Our top soil has a fair amount of sand in it, and doesn't seem to compact in the same way, so I wonder if the forking or loosening of the soil has as much of a benefit. I should probably find a way to see if there is an effect.
Hi Red. Good to see you hard at work building soil fertility. Will you or have you tried cover crops to build soil fertility? Looks like you need some living roots to assist with bringing the OM into the deeper soil.
I tried cover crops in my other polytunnel a few years ago. Not sure I would do it again, as it occupied the space for quite a while, and not necessarily a lot of organic matter compared to what could easily be bought/brought in.
Out of curiosity, do you think that the addition of biochar to the compost might help with moisture retention? I have not been able to experiment with it personally, yet, but my understanding is that the addition of (loaded) biochar helps act as a buffer for water, since it acts somewhat like a sponge.
Lots of great insights there, thank you Bruce. I am wondering how much worm activity is in the soil to begin with? When you dug the trenches what did you see? Also I wonder as it's a new tunnel if perhaps a sliding scale system would work so practices that are needed year 1 and 2 are eased as the yeas go on such as watering practices. In addition would leaving roots in the beds overwinter to breakdown attract and feed better the soil life and thus speeding up the process of plant ready nutrients being available?
There were a few worms, but not so many, though I have had the place quite dry for a while. I think you are right about the sliding scale of intervention, and the types of things I would need to do change from season to the next. We had left most of the roots of the plants in the soil, which will attract the worms and other biology, in addition to the compost.
What if its not so much that the compost needs so much time to break down , but rather it takes that long to get a good colony of beneficial bacteria to aid the roots in nutrient uptake ?
Wow, that's one hell of a polytunnel. I'd be tempted ti live in it :). The trenches and layers of soil are pretty amazing, I would love to do that here. My garden had a hairdresser and a shop on it built nin the 1800s and taken down in the 70s. I'm forever getting bits of glass and china. It is exceptionally stony, but at least it drains. It was the first in-soil growing year here and I used supersoil, because the ground was pretty dead. It was ok, but I expect next year to be better. I'll be fascinated to see how your tunnel grows next year, are you planting anything in there in the winter? One question, seaweed - how do we know it is organic? And can it really be? I just can't help but think of the welsh coast which was flooded with sewage this year, and the east coast of England. The companies will not be up punished either - a sad fact of our lives now, and it certainly stopped me from collecting any. Thank you for everything you are doing!
Yeah, it is a big one, and I have two of them! I do have plans to plant in them over winter, and it will be really interesting to see how they manage. The seaweed I get is from the West coast of Ireland, so is probably pretty clean No doubt there can be some undesirable stuff in it, but I think that is the same with everything I can buy in.
I'd recommend Dan Kittredge for more detailed information, but the short version is I think your actions ended up being somewhat counter productive to each other. First the compost you brought in was woody which means it is fungally dominated but you put in plants that like a bacterially leaning microbe profile, or an even profile, then you pulled roots from the previous weeds which would have fed the bacteria in the soil, likely reducing your availability further, then the additional fertility made lots of nutrition available to the plants in the short term which decreases their needs for building symbiotic relationships with microbial life which gives you a fairly classic crash when that fertility runs out, and there was no incentive for the plants to sink their roots deeper for more nutrients as you created a zone with good levels of moisture and nutrition right above a zone with poor levels of both. A simple fix here would be to put that fertility which went on top of the soil instead underneath the cardboard layer. Then one good soaking will encourage root growth to that lower layer as the initial fertility is used up. Roots are your best bet for mixing zones of earth as they will work their way down and then die, leaving behind organic matter. One way to address this would have been to plant a cover crop of deep drilling radishes once you thought the cardboard was decomposed enough to allow them to push through- or preferably (though the timing has to work) put the cover crop in the fall before, then cover with cardboard/compost in the spring and the roots will be releasing their fertility as they rot at roughly the same point your amendments are running out and the tomatoes are searching for more nutrition.
In my opinion, you did not supply enough moisture during soil preparation. Dry cardboard is hard to decompose, while a good soaking before spreading compost helps a lot. Moisture helps biology to reproduce as well, and at first sight that municipal compost has few of it. Next year that soil will play a different music!
Yeah, I also suspect this might have been contributing to the problem. I've learned the hard way to water under and on top of cardboard when building a new bed - and then really soak the material that comes on top. Particularly with municipal compost that might have hydrophobia issues.
Water definitely played a factor. Under the driplines, the compost was moist for the whole season, as was the cardboard and soil below, in a cone that spread out quite wide connecting each section under each dripper. So with this portion of the compost/cardboard/soil there was more than enough moisture for the season. And I thought that this would have been enough, but apparently not later in the season. The other parts of the compost, away from the driplines would have had issues as you suggest.
watching the video, brought up a question to mind: in watering, I see the drip system, but also, you mentioned comparing to outside the poly tunnel. Do you maybe run the sprinklers inside the polytunnel a couple of times jsut to get that water flowing all over the compost/soil? I know you talked about getting more of the nutrients to flow better from top compost to lighter soil below. Would the "deluge" or running the sprinklers help simulate the deeper rains to get more water to worms and other biology below to help break down the fertilizers to make it more readily available?
I did use the sprinklers a bit at the beginning of the season, but stopped when the plants went in. But under each dripper in the pipe there was a lot of water flow, which spread out quite a bit to cover all of the soil underneath. Although some of the compost was dry, there was still quite a bit of it that was moist throughout the season, and I would have thought that was enough, given the volume that was there. But it wasn't. More water would have helped, but I think increasing the amount of concentrated fertility added to the soil at the beginning, or liquid feeding, would have been an easier and more effective for this season.
@@REDGardens ahh, so perhaps next time, not splitting how you fertilized is a better move. At the least, it would have made more nutrients available rather than the split that left some of the fertilizer not freed up.
Have you communicated your experience with the municipality producing this "compost"? Maybe they should market it as mulch based on its behavior at sale
They market it as that already. I use the term Municipal Compost, because that is the scale and typical quality it is, but it is actually from a company. It is what it is, and I just need to adapt.
@@REDGardens A thought around this. It could be interesting if you could nudge the company / municipality into having a long term and short term pile of compost. Meaning how long they have had it breaking down. Short term compost, like you have. is good for mulching, but long term for nutrients.
It would be different, but I think it would make the fertility issues worse, unless I added a lot more nitrogen to the mix. The compost is just not broken down enough yet, and would probably rob some of the nitrogen from the soil.
I think you are looking at the whole thing with no idea what things really mean. Fertility is a general term we use that can be decieving. The real trick is to imagine that fertility is not the amount of organic matter, minerals etc. but the total amount of living beings. This way you will gain a completely new view on how to approach this problem.
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Love the analytic work you do. Belive the watering was the main factor there. Too dry... water is what moves everything there, between soil and plants, between dirt, organic mater and microorganisms...water is the most potent factor in the mix (soil elements and structure, light, temperature, etc). Compostea...there not a single scientifc study (that i know of) that supports it. What "bacteria" are you brewing? Are they alive after you spread them in the soil? Usually bacteria (and other microrganisms) are already in the soil and grow there if the conditions are right. If the condition arent right for them to flourish they die... After many years being a beliver in "organic" methods im starting to open myself to the idea that sometimes, in certain situations, "sintetic" feetilizers make more sense. Sometimes they are even more ecologic! It you be nice to see you give it a trial. Anyway, tanks a lot.
Water was definitely a factor. What surprised me was that the volume of compost and soil under the driplines that was kept quite moist wasn't enough for the plants for the full season.
That is one thing that I didn't mention, as I did exactly that. A lot of this compost was bought at the beginning of 2021 and spread over the bed in 2022, and had it covered with a tarp the whole yaar. But it got too dry on the inside of the compost, and the pile was too big that the decomposition really slowed down.
@@GGeloRob I have to trim them, to keep them on topic, and so that I can actually get them finished! I always drop things from the script, but very rarely from the actual recording.
My two cents. That original soil looks terrible, almost sterile and devoid of any nutrients. Its moisture holding capacity is probably also very poor. I would remove all the soil and start anew. Hydroponic aquaculture could also be a solution. Solves the soil problem, solves the watering problem, much better nutrient distribution and control, plus you could get a fish harvest?
It's just soil. It was growing wild plants just fine. It's probably just short of nitrogen. With that fixed it'll be okay. People underestimate soil IMO. They expect it to be all black and crumbly. But plants aren't actually so fussy.
@@SinkingPoint You have a point but if you look at the potato trials of the author the medium makes a large difference in growth and harvest, There is likely some truth to what you say, that past a certain point improvements in soil make little difference. I just think that soil is too poor to salvage. I have very claylike soil with a lot of rocks, and I get rid of as much solid clay as I can and remove all the stone I can. Then I add the compost and organic matter. This seems the only way I can get my soil to produce anything.
@@thegeneralist7527 the main thing the potato trials showed was that potatoes are nitrogen hungry and different media had different levels of available nitrogen. I don't believe any soil is unsalvageable unless it's contaminated with something harmful, or has an extreme pH. The worst possible soil is 100 percent mineral. All it's missing is organic matter and nutrients, both of which can be added. Clay is underrated IMO. The small particle size weathers easily so there are lots of micronutrients available. It's also great for water retention. If you're going to bring in new medium anyway why not make raised beds with your native soil underneath? It won't harm your plants but it's there if the roots want it.
@@SinkingPoint I agree again, but once clay hardens it is like rock, and when its wet it is hard to work I live in Victoria BC and our Mediterranean climate is extremely wet during the most of the year, and then in summer we have drought. I have lots of trees and shrubs and they are as bad as the clay. Lol! My raised beds get invaded by tree and shrub roots,.Is there a solution for trees and flower/vegetable gardens getting along? The trees seems to outcompete everything!
I think that the soil is quite poor to start with, but abandoning it and going full on hydroponic is a bit of a leap! I started with the same soil in the other polytunnel, and it is producing a huge abundance now. I have no doubt that in time, and with reasonable care, this soil will become very productive as well.
You need acid soil for soft rock phosphate to be available. Try an animal based phosphorus source. Bone meal is widely available. I love fish bone meal. I foliar apply seaphos from pacific grow in season. Did you run a paste taste? Test the carbon to nitrogen ratio for your compost. You want 18 to 1 ratio. Amino acid nitrogen sources like fish hydro or soy meal is how I get around the tye up in my notill beds.
Traditionally, no-dig techniques have you simply smother existing plants with the cardboard and compost laid on top. Supposedly, th be root structure keeps nutrients more bio-available to new plants. Some recommendations suggest saturating the cardboard underneath before adding the compost, then watering that in, as well. This accelerates the decomposition of the cardboard. I know you had a lot of debris that you needed to remove, but it would be interesting to see a trial comparing different strategies of setting up a garden bed. Tilling in compost and amendments, lasagna beds, double dig, etc.
Yes, removing the existing roots removed a lot of the life out of the soil. But it had to be done. Bindweed especially can make it through many layers of cardboard, so the usual method would not work at all, unless I used 4 or 6 layers of cardboard and then let it sit for a long time before digging planting holes all over it. The other option was to tarp the whole thing for a year or more to kill off the vegetation. But I decided to do this method, also because of the rubble and plastic, just to see what would happen. But I am just about to start another section of the garden beside this polytunnel, where I am trialing 4 or 5 different no-dig methods of starting a garden.
@@REDGardensNice. I'm trialing some raised bed techniques in the poor soil of South Florida with various methods of modified hugelkultur. All regular no-dig techniques fail me, here, since I have 1 cm of topsoil on ground up limestone aggregate 8 feet deep called "builder's fill." I'm interested in other contexts, though, so I have some ideas to build fertility once I move and will be in the lookout for your future updates on this.
hey friend, greetings from argentina, i liked when you analized the soil profile. and as allways id like to see what difference over time biochar would make if mixed in with compost. as it doesnt decompose, it builds soil faster. a no till garden bed with extra biochar would be amazing to compare with the others as it progresses year on year, could you get close to a terra preta like the amazon ones? id love to see you try! thanks for everything brother, loving your content as usual.
Hello there in Argentina! That would be interesting, to see what happens with biochar and a no dig method. I use biochar in one of the other gardens, which is dug in, but with no-dig, I wonder if it will do so much benefit if it is closer to the surface.
@@REDGardens the more you introduce, the faster it will accumulate and start making a difference. i personally mix my kitchen waste with crushed charcoal for reducing smells at first, then add a little more before composting or giving it to worms, then a little more when mixing in for potting mix or my garden beds. i also throw the big chunks in the leaf shredder for leaf mold and mulch mixes and it does wonder in every case. it's allways enough to make a difference but not too much to negatively impact the processes i'm doing. worms love it too i guess it acts as grit for them. i have a bird problem in my newest bed, they've learned of the big fat worms living there 😆
1) I love your videos. I watch them multiple times, just to let it all stew together in my brain 2) your diagnosis of water seems like a good starting point. So some questions, was the cardboard more significantly broken down under the drip lines that other locations? I know cardboard only last 6 months, so by now it's probably all gone, but worth asking. Since your compost takes awhile to break down, were tomatoes (a heavy feeder crop) the best choice for a first year, or would a low feeder be a better choice and them work your way up? Since industrial farms have an issue of water runoff carrying N with it. It seems logical the N needs water to penetrate deeper into the soil. Also soil life needs water, so the most biologically active area of the bed is just going to be under the drip lines. Meaning as the tomato roots spread out, they are going into "dead" areas with most of the nutrients still ties up. Limiting their overall viability, especially late in the season. I'm not sure if there is any research about drip lines in covered spaces vs outdoors. Seems like there would be. Outdoors the rain will be enough to keep soil alive, and drip is just to feed plants. Seems like someone else would have noticed by now. 3) I loved the shot of the trench, with a clear demarcation of compost vs soil. I would encourage you to redo this every year and share photos of the steady integration. I've heard from many channels that starting a garden is hard and then in 3-5 years, things "pop" but too many people quit before then. In the USA, it takes 5 years to get certified organic, and I think there is a similar issue. Your compost seems mostly dead. Yes there are some decomposes turning the woody material into bioavaliable material. But it seems to be of a very minimum rate, and I'd postulate diversity. I think of compost as feeding next yeas crop not this year's. I heard compost piles break down from the bottom up and bacterial colonize from the soil, and part of the turning process is to redistribute those throughout the pile to reduce the required distance of spread. Similar inoculation processes have been done by people using hot manures. So here is a proposed tactic. When you first get your compost, inoculate a bag or two with tea. The bigger the mix of biology the better. Then when you go to use your compost, the bacteria would have spread farther and wider in the time between. then compare the results of the inoculate vs not bags. Now if you use your compost quickly, this isn't going to show. Bacterial take time to grow and multiple. and from the Certified Organic, and many antidotes, that could be years. This should be effecting your polyclture garden too - and your fertility bombs in the simple garden (rotting apples). Looking forward to this years update. So, inoculate early, mix, water, etc. Let the bugs grow. 4) Are you familiar with the Jena Experiment? This research into biodiversity is cool and long lasting. One of the interesting points i've heard, is that the polyculture nature only does a little better during the normal growing years, but really shines in the too hot and too cold and too dry years. Where the polyculte plots do much better. Since you keep so many records I wonder if this can be checked in your data. 5) your experience with compost has really lead me to a thought that compost is "interesting". It's not the best mulch, it's not the best fertilizer, it's not the best growing medium, it's not best and weed suppression. But it is "ok" in all these categories. And therefor it's general application is useful. Where each "best-in-class" material, is limited in use for other purposes. 6) any thoughts on your compost being too woody there therefor more fungle dominate? that would lead it to be better used for bushes and trees than annual crops. 7) others have mentioned this. But some new research and thought, is that the soil needs exudates far more than we previously thought. Therefor year long growing is important. Yes we think of cover crops as producing biomass and carbon. But they also feed the soil life. and that life probably doesn't do too well when we starve it for months on end during winter. It has to reboot each spring. So I know you calculated the amount of N your cover crop produced, but maybe that is the wrong measure. its the total photosynthisis, which would always be greater than zero.
1) Thanks! 2) The cardboard disappeared quite quickly under the drip line areas, definitely by middle of the summer. I found that the soil was quite moist, expect for under the paths, as the water spread out quite wide under each dripper in the pipes. 3) Definitely going to repeat the trench for a few years, they were very useful! To be honest, I approached this garden with the idea of doing just the basic stuff of covering it with compost, and some amendments, to see what would happen, as so many people recommend it as the quick and easy option. I had my reservations, but decided to go with it, to see what happened. So observing it over time will definitely be interesting. 4) Not familiar, but will be interesting to look into. 5) Very good way of putting it. Different composts will rank differently on those categories. 6) Definitely woody, but apparently also a lot of high nitrogen stuff mixed in to get it really hot and to process it quickly. The company I get it from is interested in getting a decent end product, but fairly quickly. 7) Good points.
