Investing in Soil

Jag, thanks for the great video links!

Not sure if this is where to post gardening links but here goes...

People in the central Texas area might enjoy these links on edible landscaping:

http://www.backyardgroceries.com/default.html

http://edibleyards.com/

http://go-farm.com/

http://resolutiongardens.com/

http://yardfarmaustin.com/

and finally, a favorite nursery...

http://naturalgardeneraustin.com/

marsha

please read "Grass, The Forgiveness of Nature"

robie

husband,father,farmer,optometrist

Interesting videos.  I don't know a great deal about soils other than the soils portion of a plant science course I took in college but I think your idea of investing in the soil is very wise.  My wife's the gardener in our family but I bought a sizeable amount of beautiful black organic topsoil for our gardens this year (since our soil tends to be poor and sandy) and I have to say, the veggies were the best I've ever tasted.  Veggies I don't normally care much for like beets, turnips, and Brussels sprouts tasted great.  You've motivated me to look into this area further and also to go back and start digging out old notes about Findhorn, biodynamic gardening, Rudolf Steiner. and the like for ideas.  Thanks!  

JAG

Thanks for beginning this thread.  It's a subject I have a lot of interest in. 

I have an old Elliot Coleman book that has a lot of good ideas for building the soil and growing food at a production level.  Google his name.  I see that he has some new books I haven't read.

To sort of add to the "tea" idea.  I have a good sized stock tank that I've attached a faucet to.  i use a bucket that I punched a bunch of holes in to hold horse manure and act as a teabag in the stock tank.  Then I just run a hose out to the garden and individually feed the plants.  It's a little labor intensive, and I have thought of rigging a hose with many holes that I could just lay down the rows and let the tea soak in, but haven't done it yet.

Growing something like annual rye grass and clover after harvesting other crops can establish in the fall to avoid erosion over the winter.  The rye grass will winter kill and can be tilled under in the spring to add organics to the soil and you get nitrogen from the clover.

Doug

Hey Doug, are you on well water or municipal? The reason I ask is that the chlorine content of municipal water would be counterproductive to compost tea. I started using rain water with my compost tea and it has made a noticeable difference.

Thanks for the Coleman reference, I'll check it out.

I grow almost all of my food.   I call what I do "farming the soil"  because if you take care of the soil,  the plants will take care of themselves... or at least that is what I have found.

I have written a blog post about this...

  http://kapundagarden.blogspot.com/2009/07/farming-soil.html

... and even worse,  this has been known for years.  This blog post is about a book that was written the same year that I was born!  When will they ever learn!

  http://kapundagarden.blogspot.com/2009/09/farming-society-technology-and-economy.html

I would also add that this talk is relevant in this context....

   http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on...

When "farming my soil"  I imagine that these are the organisms that I need to care for....  and the plants will take care of themselves.

organisms are mycetes,

I used to be a commodities farmer, then a cattle farmer,then a grass farmer,now a mycete cultivator.

robie

husband,father,farmer,optometrist

"Acrea USA" google it for the best place to start

( Great topic Jag. )

  Love the compost tea video.. I wonder if any farmers have tried scaling it up .. ?

 The TED fungi video is amazing, saw it about 9 months ago, speaking as a homebrewer and breadmaker, I'd like to

say a huge thank you to Saccharomyces Cerevisiae in particular..  :-)

 I'm fairly interested in the mineral content of soils.. can they be improved with say volcanic rock dust.. ?

 I have an intuitive feeling that trace minerals are vital to soil and plant health, and thus nutritional value..

 ( see the Mike Pollan interview about NPK oversimplification..)

Jeff

I'm on well water, but I don't use it much for the tank.  I originally put the stock tank up there for supplemental water during our usually short dry periods.  This year was unusually rainy, so didn't have to add any water.  To add water from the barn (which is uphill from the house and pump), I have to run a couple hoses generally uphill, leaving not much pressure at the tank.

ejanea

This concept has been used for a long time in places like Europe and the Andes where the same ground has has been farmed as far back as anyone knows.  It's a shame that farming methods in the US have resulted in loss of incredible amounts of topsoil in the breadbasked of the country, the great plains, where industrial farming has been practiced for a few generations now.