William maxwell

Burra Maluca wrote:So, any chance of sharing the information here rather than just expecting us all to go straight to your blog? It would seem only fair.

I agree!

Here is the scoop so if anyone is interested, dig deeper.

In the post I use Ecological succession as a model for improving the soil and outline 3 different situations that we usually find ourselves in: annual gardens, grasslands and food forests.

Annual Gardens:

Don’t disturb the subsoil and encourage biological tillage
Bring your soil to life with compost
Maintain organic matter with mulch
Use crop rotation to mimic diversity

Grasslands:

Don’t disturb the soil – ensure the lowest level of mechanical disturbance possible
Always keep your soil covered with perennial cover crops
Plant diverse perennial cover crops
Planned disturbance in a form of animal impact and planned grazing


Food Forests:

Improve your soil with green manures and transitional ground-covers
Inoculate your soil with mycorrhizal fungi
Use woody mulch to feed the fungi
Create self-sustaining fertility with nitrogen fixing trees and dynamic accumulator plants

Hey Guys,

I’ve finally got my hands on a piece of a land but the reality is that my soils are shallow, compacted, alkaline and sometimes waterlogged for months.

I've done little bit of research and what I found is that the easiest way to regenerate the soil is to replicate conditions found in nature. Annual gardens, grasslands and food forests, all can be brought to life by imitating natural ecosystem counterparts.

I've wrote a whole post with specific steps on how to improve soils in all three outlined situation.


Here is the link.