Anyone here use the " Back To Eden" gardening method..

Discussion in 'Members' Systems' started by rod champion, Jan 9, 2012.

  1. rod champion

    rod champion Junior Member

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    I don't know-- I have done it all the hard way all my life... so am very new to these new ways. So I have gone head on into this.. It is certainly work at first.. my arms ache at the moment. But in the long haul.. that is what I am after
     
  2. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    Period of Record Monthly Climate Summary

    Period of Record : 5/16/1942 to 3/31/1954


    Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Annual
    Average Max. Temperature (F) 51.1 56.1 57.4 62.2 66.3 69.0 74.6 75.3 74.5 66.6 59.0 53.7 63.8
    Average Min. Temperature (F) 33.4 37.1 37.2 41.1 44.4 47.4 50.6 50.8 47.3 44.2 39.4 36.7 42.5
    Average Total Precipitation (in.) 9.89 6.81 7.36 3.39 2.78 1.88 0.52 0.52 1.37 5.60 9.40 9.48 58.99
    Average Total SnowFall (in.) 1.5 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.9
    Average Snow Depth (in.) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    Percent of possible observations for period of record.
    Max. Temp.: 92.1% Min. Temp.: 85.9% Precipitation: 97% Snowfall: 95.5% Snow Depth: 97%


    Neat huh? I love the internet, just wish it was faster for me. :)



    Ludi (or anyone else), do you know how deeply they mulched in Jordan when they created Permaculture there?
     
  3. Dzionik

    Dzionik Junior Member

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  4. Ludi

    Ludi Junior Member

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    In the video, Geoff says they mulched almost half a meter deep!
     
  5. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    That makes sense to me.

    1.5 feet of mulch in a desert would give a lot of micro areas for the water. I don't know how many of you reading this have experienced a high desert lava field w/ lava tubes. In Northern CA there is Lava Beds National Park. Many lava tubes there, gets well over 100f there too. The great thing though is go 5' underground and it is near freezing, complete with ice in summer.

    Imagine, lava tubes as refrigerators... no electricity needed.

    Anyway, I digress... I can totally see that much mulch being effective. Heck, toss more on! All it is going to do is turn into rich organic matter top soil which retains water like a sponge and the air pockets help bring water up via the capillary actions of water.
     
  6. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    hmm, maybe I've abit stingy on the mulch.
    I dont think I'd need that much, it does make sense for a really hot climate though.
    Been thinking about offering my place as a drop off point to a contractor who does hedges as well as lawns.
     
  7. Ludi

    Ludi Junior Member

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    We just got a room-sized pile of chipper debris dumped on our place by a tree service who trimmed under the electric cooperative lines. It's moving the stuff down to the gardens that will be the hard part.....
     
  8. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    See if you can borrow Hard Working Hippy's chooks....
     
  9. rod champion

    rod champion Junior Member

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    Tell me about it Ludi... I did it one wheel barrow at a time. It is work that is for sure. A tractor with a bucket would do it tho.
    Too bad they can't drive those trucks right to your garden, isn't it?
     
  10. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    I do it with a wheel barrow one at a time as well, or carrying 2 - 5 gallon buckets. I prefer it over a skidsteer, tractor or truck. Slowing down this much allows me to see more of what is going on outside and notice quickly any problems.
     
  11. S.O.P

    S.O.P Moderator

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    Feet also cause a lot less compaction.
     
  12. bazman

    bazman Junior Member

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    When I first started my food forest I added 10 truck and dog loads of woody mulch over 1/2 acre and I keep adding as much as I can get, this also goes onto my vegi gardens but I also add a chunky grass mulch, weed and lawn mulch, compost, Biochar =), green manures, rock dust, liquid composts, vermicast and I chop and drop legumes all the time. I use legume ground covers, food crop ground covers and anything I can get my hands on in bulk which is chemical free. All my garden beds and path edging is medium to large wooden logs which slowly break down. I remember reading somewhere tree's prefer a fungal covering which comes from woody mulch and vegi gardens prefer a bacterial covering. I have strange looking fungal out brakes all around the food forest but not very often in my vegi garden beds.

    We had a pretty wet season last year and much of my mulch was broken down extremely quickly, even hardwood chips and I had issues keeping a good covering over my soil. Thanks to a good mate of mine I have a good clean source of wood mulch.

    I like to think that a variety of inputs creates a better growing environment and mulch is just one of them.
     
  13. Finchj

    Finchj Junior Member

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    Rod,

    We are in NC too. Winston-Salem area.

    We've got a suburban lot, so the topsoil was stripped when the house was built. My parents had it maintained as a lawn, but nothing too crazy (besides the annual weed+feed). Needless to say, the clay was unworkable. The trees we have in our back yard were growing, but suffered from the compacted and abused soil.

    Since NC does free soil testing, we sent in our samples. We had- almost literally- no phosphorus in our soil. I'm talking a reading of 6, where 25+ is considered good. Our pH was also acidic- as expected.

    So, mostly by myself, I double dug our garden. Once a section was completed, I turned in lime and an organic 10-7-7 fertilizer. We then cut leaf mold compost from our town with a soil conditioner laden with mico organisms and layered that on top of our newly loosened soil. That layer was probably ~2", since we had over 1000 sq ft to cover. On top of our compost layer, we put about 2" of wood chips from the city. I felt this was the best solution for immediately raising fertility and it would give us a great base on which to start building our own organic matter. Our soils were so poor that without doing this work, we wouldn't have been able to grow much of anything. We didn't sheet mulch because I stripped off the grass. A fair amount of Bermuda grass survived and, combined with morning glories that came in the mulch, were our largest issues.

    Our garden grew reasonably this past year, given that it was the first year. We just got this years soil samples back. Our pH is now right around 6.5 for all the garden beds we limed, our P levels are ~30, and our cation exchange ratio doubled from ~4 to 9 (25 is our long term goal). Needless to say, our one time major soil additions worked.

    Were those permie solutions? Well, I guess that depends on how you look at it. But we will not be doing this again to any of our property. I think a one time addition of outside fertility is a fair thing to do. Adding wood mulch works. If you observe a nitrogen deficiency, you can always use diluted urine. Or, better yet, make sure you sow legumes with your garden veges. Most of our garden is now covered in legumes, interplanted with some soil building winter crops.

    If you want to see any pictures, click the link in my signature.

    Edit- We also made sure to inoculate our plants with endomycorrhizal fungi, as appropriate. If your soils are highly degraded, I highly recommend this step. A 1.5lb jar of inoculant from Bio Organics costs ~$50, but you'll get over 1,000 small uses which should be enough to get things moving.

    Also, where are you in NC? If you don't mind me asking!
     
  14. TheDirtSurgeon

    TheDirtSurgeon Junior Member

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    Not necessarily... some compact track loaders put less pressure on the ground than your feet. 8)
     
  15. mathuranatha

    mathuranatha New Member

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    We had a pretty wet season last year and much of my mulch was broken down extremely quickly, even hardwood chips and I had issues keeping a good covering over my soil. Thanks to a good mate of mine I have a good clean source of wood mulch.

    I like to think that a variety of inputs creates a better growing environment and mulch is just one of them.[/QUOTE]
     
  16. rod champion

    rod champion Junior Member

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    finchj.. I am between Kings Mtn. and Shelby NC. .
    Thank you for the valuable information.
    Rod
     
  17. Ludi

    Ludi Junior Member

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    Is the biochar placed on the soil surface as mulch?
     
  18. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    I know we have kicked the idea of soil testing around on the board before (perhaps it is more accurate to say that we beat it to death...) but I have some questions.

    Do one time soil amendments work for ever? Or will the phosphorus leach out of the soil, or get complexed with something so that it isn't biologically active and in a few years you'll be back at square one?

    How often should you test soil - even just a simple test like pH?

    How long after applying remedial action do you test again to see if you have over or under corrected?

    I ask because I'm contemplating getting a soil test done. I know that there's no point in asking the question 'what is in my soil' if I'm not prepared to act on that information or can't afford to do so. After 3 years of chooks working my beds and composting, the soil has improved and some things do much better than they did but I still have big fungal issues. Which I've been told is quite probably a soil issue.
     
  19. Finchj

    Finchj Junior Member

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    Oh, by no means will the soil amendments last forever! The fertilizer we used was mostly organic matter based, although there was some super phosphate :(. We are focusing on having as many dynamic accumulators as possible these first few years, with comfrey/horsetail/dandelion/stinging nettle "nets" in key water-movement locations. While we won't catch all the nutrients, I think that by keeping a strong ground cover of clover and vetch (both P accumulators) combined with the "stronger" dynamic accumulators listed, we should do a decent job of it this season. Most of those plants actually stay green all winter here (although this has been unusually mild, so maybe not in the future), so some netting action should be happening as we speak.

    Like I said before, we have also been inoculating with mycorrhizal fungi like crazy in hopes that we'll get a good network started. To support soil biology we are trying to maintain growing plants throughout the winter as well as a good 3-4"+ mulch layer that includes a small layer of compost. If we can create the conditions for happy soil organisms, we should see a decent retention of nutrients.

    The lime will hopefully last a good while. Increasing organic matter should buffer our pH over the long haul. I think it will inevitably decline, but as we are only in our second year we will have to wait and see just how quickly that falls.

    As far as how often you should test... NC tells us it should be done every three years, that changes do not occur that often. Of course we have done two consecutive years: the first told us what we were dealing with, and the second showed us the results of our first amendments. Whether we send in samples again next year is really up to us. Even though we used a clean stainless steel digging tool and thoroughly mixed about a dozen lots per sample, I still want my parents to get a true soil core tool for future sampling. Just in case our tool was messing with the readings.

    I'm no expert though. Here is a link to publications from our state's agronomic services. I would take some of what they have to say with a grain of salt. One of their publications said that "organic matter will increase soil acidity." While I know that some types of OM will, I was under the impression that the pH of organic matter varies- some might be alkaline.

    We are glad that the samples are still tested for free. Obviously people can and do garden, even farm, successfully without ever having one done. We just think that since the service is offered we might as well take full advantage.
     
  20. TheDirtSurgeon

    TheDirtSurgeon Junior Member

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    No, that's true, amendments don't necessarily last long.

    But I'm given to understand that once the nutrients are in balance, per Albrecht (something I've read much of in Acres USA magazine) they'll pretty much stay there as long as you keep adding humus, and don't do anything drastic.

    This is a lesson to be learned from nature itself. Look at any natural system that has been untouched by humans for a century or more. It's in balance, and won't go out. It needs no amendments.

    That is why, in my opinion, compost is the fix-all. It just takes longer... compost won't remedy a low calcium situation so fast as an application of lime. It all works together.

    But as in "Back to Eden," the consistent application of organic cover, and the proper decay conditions, results in balanced soil after sufficient time.
     

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