Creating good soil, without chemicals and fertilizer

[canadianplant]

Your soil is what makes or breaks your plants. Without good soil life, plant life wouldn’t exist ( at least as we know it). If we can create good soil, we as gardeners may not need supplemental fertilizer. It can be accomplished by following a few rules and using a few techniques.

Mulch - One of the most important things to do for your soil. A layer of deep mulch stops the rain from pounding the soil, and washing away precious humus, nutrients and top soil. Not to mention keeps the soil cooler and moist. This is the right environment for soil organisms.
We all use different types of mulches, from leaves to straw to bark chips. The best mulches are readily decomposed. This will ensure constant food for organisms, there for creating good top soil.
IT also creates a great area for beneficial insects to nest for the winter (ladybugs for example).
You could also compost directly underneath the mulch. This makes it easier, because you don’t have to haul compost around your yard, and destroy some of the good bacteria when you dig out a few shovels full. It will also inevitably create heat and can possibly keep some things growing a bit longer in the season.

Cover Crops - Living mulches. Many of these do a few things (as should everything in your garden). Clover for example, is a nitrogen fixer, as well as having large deep root systems to pull up nutrients, and create pockets of humus, it attracts many beneficial insects. Most cover crops can be cut down a few times a year, to load up your compost, or leave on the ground to place all the nitrogen and what not on top of the soil, instead of deep underground creating healthy nutrient rich soil.
Other good cover crops are alfalfa, strawberry, clover, some beans, vetch, timothy grass, chicory and one that is usually labeled as the best, comfrey.
Also, using deep rooted plants, such as asparagus, wild wheat, beans, radish, carrots, (even dandelion !!) Garlic, chives, perennial herbs and others all pull up nutrients from deep in the soil, and then place those nutrients onto the top soil. Not to mention when the roots die (or in the case of root crops, when they rot), they create nice big pockets of humus for your plants.

No Tilling - Of course it is inevitable for us to dig somewhat into our soil. Farmers and most of us do this as well. We heavily till the soil, forcing oxygen into the microbes, which explode with growth. Then the plants are pulled before frost, and the soil is left bare. The microbes in this type of soil will grow and create good growing conditions, for a year or 2. Then there is no humus, or top soil left for soil organisms to eat, because they used them all in the rush after tilling. Since most of us don’t leave the plants to rot, there are no nutrients going back to the soil, therefore depleting the soil of nutrients, practically killing it.

In a garden where you don’t till, you let the plants and soil do the organisms do the work FOR you. The less you dig, and put no chemicals into the soil, the better quality soil you will eventually have. Tilling sets back soil life. This is what we don’t want.

No Chemical Fertilizers - Chemical based fertilizers replace your soil borne organisms. Therefore you won’t have a backup, if you can’t use fertilizer. Plants only use 10% of the fertilizer we put in the soil. The rest is wasted; more than likely ending up in our water supplies and lakes (this can create low oxygen “dead zones” like in Lake Erie, or cause massive algae blooms). Using the proper amount of compost and manure, and the proper plants will create the best soil you have ever seen, without the risk of many fertilizers.
Now of course, you may need to supplement with fertilizers, especially when your garden is in its infancy. But most of us rely on them too much.

Putting It Into Practice - An experiment I will be trying this year, is interplanting around my bamboo. Since bamboo (and ill sneak in musa here as well) love nitrogen, I’m going to be planting a massive amount of nitrogen fixing plants, and nurse plants. Nurse plants are plants that seem to aid the growth of others (an example is chamomile). This will do 2 things – reduce the need for water and fertilizer, and shade the bare soil. Not to mention, most nitrogen fixing plants are great for attracting beneficial insects.

Last year, I let everything grow in, whether it was weeds or not. You can end up getting some nice free plants (like the chamomile I got, or the spray millet). Because I had bare soil all year, I should attract pioneer plants. These plants are usually the “invasive” plants we think about. Dandelion, clover and thousands more. These usually include deep rooted plants, as well as nitrogen fixers, and mineral depositing plants. They if left alone, or with some help will create soil that is ready to be used by perennial species, then eventually shrubs, and then large trees.
This is Called “succession”, when nature changes from grassland to forest. This is the reason why we pull up weeds, and struggle with “pests”. When we till the soil we create a niche for pioneer plants to take hold.
Most of our yards are prairie/savannah like. A few tall trees, detached garden beds, maybe a veggie patch. Whereas in most of our situations, we come from a forested area. This is the main reason why we have to fight to keep our gardens weed free. We are fighting nature’s natural processes. Doesn’t it make sense to work WITH nature? It’s as simple as connecting the detached garden beds, not mass planting same species plants together (this also creates a magnet for insects), and gardening in “3d”.
There are generally 7 layers to a forest:
Tall tree layer (chestnut, large sugar maples etc., standard fruit trees)
Small tree layer (dwarf fruit trees, apricots, peaches,)
Shrub layer (caragana, Russian olive, service berry, rose etc.)
Herb layer (herbaceous plants not just herbs) (herbs, lobelia, non woody plants)
Ground cover layer (comfrey, strawberry, thyme, low growing plants)
Root layer (radish to some extent, ginger, potato, peanuts)
Vine layer (passiflora, clematis, honeysuckle, etc.)

By filling in these niches, you eliminate the needs for nature to try to sprout pioneer plants, as well as building great soil, because of the high amount of ground cover, leaf fall from trees, and decomposing food. Not to mention welcoming wildlife, to create a web of life in your garden, this ultimately starts as the soil.

[hardyjim]

Thanks for the tutorial be-otch

[canadianplant]

It took longer to go through spell check then to write it LOL

[hardyjim]

I heard dat

[Stevea07]

Plants only use 10% of the fertilizer we put in the soil.

Only if you fertilize with 10 times too much fertilizer.

[canadianplant]

If I remember correctly, the plant doesnt use all the water that goes into the ground. Most of it goes into the rivers and creeks. Why would liquid fertilizer be different?

[lucky1]

Only if you fertilize with 10 times too much fertilizer.

My ears were ringing...

Barb

[canadianplant]

LOL

[TerdalFarm]

OK, we're having too much fun.
Jesse, you need several horses for organic bulk, goats to control those weedy palms, and a bunch of chickens for P. Plus dogs and cats for N. Works for me!
--Erik

[canadianplant]

You can buy manure. There are tons are farms that are more then happy to sell it. And im sure your neighbors wouldnt mind you stealing their leaves for compost or multch ( although I got a few weird looks as I hauled away 2 large bags off the curb this year). As well, if you compost your veggie scraps in place ( the garden bed under multch), you have a constant source of compost.

To make the difference, as far as ive read organic fertilizer isnt bad. Bone, blood and fish meal, epsom salts etc. Or you can actualy piss on the compost or soil to raise nitrogen levels LOL..

Speaking of...

A friend mentioned, his parents ( who had cows), have " a huge pile of the old cow crap thats been sitting there for 5 years, its just a black earth pile now"

IF i had the room id have to many animals , scaly, wet, featherd and oh so tastey alike