Re: [Grass-Fed-Eggs] Digest for grass-fed-eggs@googlegroups.com - 1 Message in 1 Topic
Jim Adams
Group: http://groups.google.com/group/grass-fed-eggs/topics
Jim Adams <thetravel...@gmail.com> May 03 12:34PM -0400
thanks, Carole. I like your post .. and -- if i may -- here's a bit to add
to it. This is a short articlette for Mother Earth News i'm sending in
once some friends edit this version down to 300 words"
If his ecosystem is as sparse as it sounds, what i suggest may not work all
that well for the first few years. Still, it holds water in and gives an
environment for the decomposer ecosystem to build.
enjoy, jim
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Jim Adams
“hey kelly .. on worms..... we create an environment, and they will come – almost regardless of what it is now.” I wrote.
Kelly and I are on a Grass Fed Chickens list serve. She wrote that she wanted to start a garden, and her soil was lousy so she was going to get some earthworms. And I replied:
If you don't have a worm friendly environment, worms won't survive. Here's what we do to make a worm friendly environment. For our garden, we lay down a thin layer (1/4 inch more or less) of compost or horse manure, or similar stuff and cover it with cardboard. We use only brown (not colored) cardboard with all the tape, staples and labels taken off. It gets old quickly when we find strips of plastic tape or labels then next year. We prefer large pieces, like from a washing machine or refrigerator, or large furniture. When the cardboard is in place, we can't see any soil. We then cover it with a 3 or 4 inch layer of hay or straw. We prefer to let it sit for a month or so, but it's ok to plant right away. We cut a 3 - 4 inch hole in the mulch to put in tomatoes or squash, etc,and we will cut a 2 – 3 inches wide line for a row of beans, carrots, etc.
The first year in our last place, we did this on a layer of fresh mowed sparse grass that had a ½ to 1 inch layer of red clay over sedimentary gravel that we couldn't get a trowel into tho we could drive metal fence posts into it. 9 years later, we had 4 to 5 inches of beautiful dark brown, crumbly soil. We don't have a cultivator or tractor, so this is all we did.
Our first weeds grew from weed seeds in the hay and they were easy to pull out in late May and early June when they were still small and their roots were all in the hay. Earth worms were all over the underside of the cardboard by mid June in the first year of this kind of gardening. We also never had to use a hoe or rake. We do water the garden, tho we think we use less than for a well cultivated, weed-free, bare soil garden. We also have to do on going weed removal, but it is less than all the other ways of intense cultivation that I’ve been a part of in years gone by ... as a kid, mother planted a large garden and I have other than fond memories of being a teen age hoer.
Anyhow, we collect cardboard all year, and repeat this process every year. Which is to say .. we add a lot of organic matter and this is what builds the soil. This also prevents light from reaching the soil, since this where deep rooted weeds will grow...no light and the weeds on and in the soil don't sprout. Rain soaks thru the hay and cardboard and is slower to evaporate than it does from bare soil ... so we have to water less. By the end of the growing season, earthworms have eaten most of the organic matter we put down. To give you some idea of what you will need: one square bale will cover about 4' x 8',and a refrigerator box will take a bale and a half to cover it.
Another perspective is: we are creating and managing a large, spread out compost pile. We put down the organic materials in such a way that Mama Nature nurtures. Earthworms and all the rest of the composting decomposer ecosystem show up and digest most of what we put down. Garden plants grow really well, but it's not a real friendly place for weeds – unless we let them get well started. Then, they grow as well or better than our favored garden plants. And, believe us – we do have experience with this.
Have fun, and don't let your chickens run thru the garden until you are finished raising your crops. Then let your chickens in and let them play thru. Or fence off specific portions of your garden just for them.
enjoy ... jim n'shana
Jim Adams <thetravel...@gmail.com> May 04 07:51AM -0400
oops ...sorry, the attachment i sent along didn't attach. Let me try it
again
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