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soil

Can you use humus for things besides gardening?

Posts: 17

Location: Pubnico, Nova Scotia

posted 2 years ago

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I know about using humus for gardening (compost, worms, retaining water in soil, etc.) but is it good for anything else besides gardening? It has sticky properties, but can you make things with it? I know that it’s different than clay but it just seems to me that maybe it’s got alternative uses or can use it for unique purposes. Am I wrong? I’d love to know because we have tons of it down in our woods and I don’t want it to go to waste if I can do something with it besides adding it to my garden.

Casie Becker

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posted 2 years ago

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Just sitting in the woods it is supporting the health of the forest and everything in and around it. You lose the forest and your whole region becomes hotter and drier. This has played out repeatedly over history. The middle east used to be a highly productive agricultural powerhouse and known for high quality lumber. China has destroyed previously productive land and then brought it back to life by replacing the trees. I will try to find a link to that story after I get home from work. Maybe there are other ways use humus but please understand that it is seldom ever useless.

Anne Miller

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posted 2 years ago

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It seems a shame to rob the forest of its black gold if there is not a reason for it to be used sustainably.

I know of lots of ways to use it though these all are related to gardening.

I have read that it can be used as insulation though to me there are better insulating materials, like wool.

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner

Anne Miller

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posted 2 years ago

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Here are a couple of threads that you or others might find of interest:

https://permies.com/t/45846/Sheep-Wool-Insulation-talk

https://permies.com/t/165727/permaculture-projects/dag-fleeces

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner

Sharon Buydens

Posts: 32

Location: Pubnico, Nova Scotia

posted 2 years ago

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Thanks for the wool links!

I’m just very interested in what can be done with humus outside of gardening… my mind is more on its clay content, I guess, but can clay be extracted from humus for use, let’s say, in cob?

I know you can make clay from regular dirt by suspension in water (as a clay slip) after pouring off the colloidal mixture from the sand and rocks that sink to the bottom of the bucket.

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Morfydd St. Clair

pollinator

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Location: Hamburg, Germany

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posted 2 years ago

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Right, but humus is more than just dirt, the value in it is in the microorganisms. So washing them away would be suboptimal.

I don't want to discourage you from creative ideas, but there is embodied value - even in it sitting there feeding the forest - that it would be a shame to destroy without a better use.

Anne Miller

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posted 2 years ago

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While I don't really have any idea since I know of no one who has tried this idea, I feel the moisture content of the humus who be detrimental to the home.

Maybe baking the hummus before using it as insulation will remove the moisture content to prevent black/other molds.

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner

Sharon Buydens

Posts: 32

Location: Pubnico, Nova Scotia

posted 2 years ago

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Mycelium is alive but they (permies forum covers this somewhere) let it grow and then make it inert to use it as door insulation.

Maybe the “fluffy” quality of humus can be used similarly by baking it, but I really don’t know. Might be a bad idea but maybe worth experimenting with.

Everything happens at the edges! ~ permaculture principle
See my solar and other books on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/nh9sf8ph

Anne Miller

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Mycelium and soil humus are two different materials.

So which are you wanting to use as insulation?

Soil humus as in the title or Mycelium?

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner

Sharon Buydens

Posts: 32

Location: Pubnico, Nova Scotia

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Mycelium is just an example of where organic materials have been used to produce insulation. The point was, if it can be done with one type of organic substance, why not another?

Everything happens at the edges! ~ permaculture principle
See my solar and other books on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/nh9sf8ph

Casie Becker

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Sorry it took so long.

This is a PBS program the effect of reforestation on farmlands that had suffered from desertification. I would be very cautious of stripping the local forest of its healthy soils. I don't think there's any man made product that can replace it.

Sharon Buydens

Posts: 32

Location: Pubnico, Nova Scotia

posted 2 years ago

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Casie Becker wrote:Sorry it took so long. https://youtu.be/F-PLbGp123M. This is a PBS program the effect of reforestation on farmlands that had suffered from desertification. I would be very cautious of stripping the local forest of its healthy soils. I don't think there's any man made product that can replace it.

I would agree with that!

Everything happens at the edges! ~ permaculture principle
See my solar and other books on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/nh9sf8ph

Casie Becker

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I will note also that building quality soil can be a full time job for a gardener. When my mother had a period of a few years to focus on developing the soil in a garden bed she ended up giving away literal wheel barrows full of cantaloupe and still couldn't harvest fast enough to keep up with the production. Does the benefit of insulation outway the value of a single completely organic garden bed that produces enough food that 14 people (2 in the household and another household of 12 received the wheelbarrow loads) can't eat it all? She had some excess to share from the other seven beds but the cantaloupe was definitely the peak performer.

Joshua LeDuc

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I like to dip pita bread or veggie sticks in it! ;)

You have to be tough or dumb - and if you're dumb enough, you don't have to be so tough...

Sharon Buydens

Posts: 32

Location: Pubnico, Nova Scotia

posted 2 years ago

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Here is a picture of the silty clay I made from regular yard soil the other day. Humus is another matter entirely.

Everything happens at the edges! ~ permaculture principle
See my solar and other books on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/nh9sf8ph

Meadow Cern

Posts: 17

Location: Pubnico, Nova Scotia

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I know some of you are alarmed that I would want to destroy good humus, but in reality I want to use what we have here in some way because otherwise it will be going to waste; let me explain...

We have a swamp in our backyard, a little further in the woods. The area is runoff and collects water, so the soil is BLACK and is humus quality. We plan on digging a pond to collect the water in the lowest lying area.

What will be dug out can be used elsewhere (hopefully) but I only have so much garden to use the humus, and I would hate to see it just sit there and die in a pile. If it has to be removed, then it might as well be used for something that makes it functional in other ways; hence my question on other uses for humus. I need clay for cob projects, so was hoping humus would have some clay content, but the insulation factor on the "fluffy" stuff (that is NOT clayey) made me think about other possibilities as well. I am now doing some experimenting.

Here is a picture of the humus I have (in the bucket).

Nancy Reading

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Thanks for clarifying what you're doing. I was quite confused. Basically I understand now you're digging a pond and have forest floor quality soil (like leaf mould) to dispose of. What sort of volume are you likely to have?
It might make a good substrate for mushroom growing, and certainly for seed starting. I wouldn't have thought it would have much clay content - have you done a settlement test to see what the soil fractions are? It sounds like it is basically organic material with no mineral soil (clay etc.) at all. I'm inclined to think the best use would still be to spread a thin layer over your whole garden as a mulch. I also found this article of interest: https://morningchores.com/using-leaf-mold/
If you can't use it in your own garden, maybe there is someone else locally that would benefit from some soil improvement? I suspect that it has good tradability....definitely a 'black gold' market though.

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Meadow Cern

Posts: 17

Location: Pubnico, Nova Scotia

posted 2 years ago

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Nancy, yes, I screened out the obvious organic matter (roots, leaf mold, etc.) and made a "clay slip" with the rest, although I'm not sure how much is actually clay or just rotted organic matter... it FEELS very clayey. It looks exactly like the picture above posted by Sharon (my other account, which I didn't realized I was signed into when I posted that. LOL). I also formed some into little experimental bricks and baked them in a makeshift solar oven (basically an old window and frame placed over the bricks that I had laid onto a sheet of tin).

Here are more pictures on our site as I was hoping to obtain enough clay for it to use for a cob oven:
https://forestmeadow.ca/2022/07/02/making-clay-for-cob/

I put the larger organic matter (that I had screened out) back into the soil for my garden.

Melissa Ferrin

pollinator

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If you are removing more forest floor for your pond than you can use on your garden, I would contact your nearest nursery, or start a nursery and use it to grow plants. The nursery may wish to purchase it from you. If you create your own nursery people will wish to purchase plants from you.

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