Mark Sanford

r ranson wrote:Any other suggestions for Brown-thumb friendly house plants?

Christmas cactus.  Can’t go wrong.  I neglect it and it still performs and blooms.  My longest living houseplant ever!

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:I keep hearing about a low growing microclover that is a low/no mow lawn substitute. I don't know a source for seed though.

I’m doing micro clover on my suburban lawn mixed with regular grass for 1.5 seasons now.  I like it and will overseer more heavily this fall.  The micro clover seed is very expensive.  I just have a 3/4 acre suburban, maybe 10k sq/FR of lawn.  Could not afford to do a large space.

Flora Eerschay wrote:I was recently arguing with someone about supporting regenerative agriculture, permaculture, etc. That person argued that it's a drop in the ocean of commercial farming. I said it's yet another reason to support it. I don't care how few we are, we're still making a difference!

Agree!  Plus it feels good and it is just the right thing to do.  I also think we all have some circle of influence, perhaps large, or perhaps so small that we don’t even realize it.   I like to think that at a minimum, I influence my family, my young kids, maybe my neighbors, friends, and colleagues to minimal/varying degrees.  
I veg garden because I grew up veg gardening.  We did not use best practices back then and I didnt begin implementing best practices myself until recently (I am 55).   Odds are, that if my kids garden as adults, they will start with best practices and improve things over time, influence others in there own way, etc. Multiply all of that across just the members of this forum.  So, basically, we are saving the world!  

Good job to us!!!

John Suavecito wrote:I think you're using the right approach, Mark  Compost tea is great, but it is for specific uses. I think you would get more out of it after some time adding organic material.  The research on it is very mixed, because it is just too complex of a process.  Even Elaine Ingham has changed how she makes it over the years.  If they had followed some of her early attempts, they should have been convinced that it doesn't work.  

We had the same soil situation: thick clay, soaked in pesticides and fertilizers, with sod on top.  It's taken a few years, but we have good soil now, and it was almost all just due to adding wood chips over time. Now that I have a food forest, the diverse leaves add organic material.  The soil now drains enough that complex webs of life can grow and breathe.  The tree roots have been giving off their exudates for years, setting up complex and resilient mycorrhizal relationships in the soil.  

Every year will be a fun, surprising adventure. You will notice all kinds of cool experiences all the way to a sustainable bounty of harvests.  And you're inspiring other people to join in as well.

John S
PDX OR

I do wonder if my thick clay will actually change to a better soil over time, or am I just building good soil on top of a clay layer?  I would hope to be able to see this clay layer transfer to something better over time.   Is this realistic?   Do the worms really pull the organic material deep into the clay?  I have given them plenty to work with in the areas I intend for edible planting.  I also need to find a way to improve clay/soil structure and depth where I want to maintain lawn.  For the lawn I have stopped all synthetic applications, mulch fallen leaves where they fall on the lawn, and added micro clover (Just one full season so far).

Christopher Weeks wrote:It seems like you're doing all the right low-energy things. Maybe remember to also plant polycultures as much as possible to promote diverse soil microbiota.

As to your worm castings, and not having very much early on, to make it go farther, use it to treat your seeds before planting. Apparently mixing in even a pretty small amount of castings when planting increases the diversity of microbes available to the young plant fairly dramatically.

And finally, if I lived as close to the sea as you do, I'd go forage a trunk-load of seaweed once a year to add to my compost operation.

Good tip on making best use of my limited worm casting.  I had been thinking about vermi-composting for a couple of years and this past summer I scored a great deal ($10 I think) on a worm factory at a farmers market/flea market in rural New Hampshire!

I haven't harvested castings yet but will do so soon.

Jan White wrote:An easy way to deal with kitchen scraps is to put them directly in the garden. If you have deep enough mulch, you can just put them under the mulch. If your mulch isn't thick enough, you can dig a hole in the soil and cover them up that way. My sister in law digs a shallow trench parallel to one of her vegetable rows. Then puts her kitchen scraps in the trench, filling it in as she adds more material.

I do think this mulching in place is a good approach.  I have been using "worm tubes/towers" in my main raised bed for several years that I put my kitchen scraps into in the spring/summer months.  I relocate the tubes in the bed each season.  

Anne Miller wrote:For others that are interested in improving soil:

List of Dr. RedHawk's Epic Soil Series Threads

https://permies.com/wiki/redhawk-soil

I feel there is not a lazy approach to improving the soil.  Though there are ways to make it easier.  It sounds like you are way ahead in getting the soil biology you might be seeking.  Here are a couple of threads that you might not have seen.

https://permies.com/t/76498/biology-soil

https://permies.com/t/86117/Bacteria-Fungi-Nematodes

My suggestions to add that I did not see would be compost tea and mushrooms.

With these two anyone would be putting their best step forward.

I am looking forward to hearing more about your adventures in soil building.

Anne - I am looking at all of the things that you flag.  Thank you.  I also recently finished the "Build Your Soil" and "Teaming with Microbes" and am reading "Mycelium Running"  Right now.  I also stumbled across the Documentary "Fantastic Fungi" last weekend.    It is like a big light bulb went off in my head a few months back with all of this stuff - it is so easy, right?  (philosophically speaking).  I am delaying going down the compost tea path for now, but plan to add wine cap mushroom spawn to the deep wood chip mulch I have put in place for all of the pathways around my new raised beds.  

Nancy Reading wrote:Hi Mark,
It sounds like you are doing all the right things and are going in the right direction. The key almost anywhere, to good soil will be the addition of organic materials. The other magic ingredient is time!
As regards "will it get easier" I would say 'yes' . That for me is one of the whole points of permaculture over other system designs. I sometimes refer to it as 'lazy gardening'. If it doesn't get easier over time you are doing something wrong! I'm tending more to mulching in situ - chop and drop and wind harvesting features that slow the wind and capture leaves and debris from my own and neighbouring properties. Unfortunately it can end up looking a bit messy which can be a problem I know in some neighbourhoods, either because of regulations or critter problems.
The only caveat is that with food production, especially with annual crops, the fact you are removing nutrients in the form of leaves, roots and fruit means that there is a loss over time of trace elements. This will need to be replaced or retained somehow for the system to continue indefinitely. Also the act of digging creates a bonfire of death in the soil, which feeds our annual plants, but also leads to depletion and reversion to dirt. Rest and mulch restore again as it would if we took no action.
For me something that changed my attitude and made me a bit more relaxed about having perfect growing soil, and understanding and controlling everything, was reading the one straw revolution about Masanobu Fukuoka. I wish I'd read it earlier in my life as it made me realise it is OK to not be in control of everything.
My climate and soil is too different to be of specific use to you, but I'm following with interest!

Hi Nancy,

My "lazy approach..." title in this thread was a play on "Lazy gardening" which I do see as a theme as I "dig" (pun intended) around the permies site.  I think I have also seen "Lazy Lawn care" on the site - also of interest.  I just took a quick look at "One Straw Revolution" that you recommended, added it to my reading list, and also flagged the related u-tube videos to watch soon.  Just in this quick look - I can expand my interpretation of "lazy", to include doing only what needs to be done vs doing things (adding more chores) because they seem like a good thing to do - e.g. compost tea - which I was getting very geeked out about (a positive thing for me), but decided to hit pause while I see how my new planting areas settle in.  I have added a LOT of organic material via sheet mulching.    Like you imply above, I want to have a relaxed approach in my journey.  My former "conventional" approach was centered around a lot of tasks that I needed to get done but struggled to keep up with.  I still have a lot of to-do's and limited time, but my philosophical approach has shifted and this journey much more enjoyable - even when I can't get things done (I will get to it later, next year, etc.  I know the worms and soil critters are out their working for me 24/7 - I will do what I can to keep them happy!).  

Laurel Jones wrote:

Mark Sanford wrote:Then I stumbled across a site somewhere that recommended direct seeding and saving all of the time, hassle, and expense of indoor starts (of course this can all be a lot of fun too). The author indicated his direct sown seeds always caught up to nursery Bought transplants or indoor starts.

In years that it warms up predictably, I have had similar or better experiences with seeds direct sown around the same time as I'd start them indoors(mid march), however, planting a tomato seed in mid may (zone 6 here) as my last frost date has delayed initial harvest, although the plants do eventually catch up to started seeds.  However starting tomatoes around mid march outdoors on a year where you get reliably warm weather until a last frost pops up and kills them is a real bummer.

The only other wrinkle involved in this is the need the baby freshly planted seeds, and at least for me, out of sight is out of mind, and I'm far less likely to remember to check the status of and ensure that seedlings have water if they're out in the garden versus in my pantry.

Good Points.  Thank you for the feedback.  I have not put any thought into exactly when to plant.  Perhaps I will try putting seeds in every week or two just before and after my last frost date and think out if needed.  This is easy for me to do because I have a small garden.  I will probably put in 8 - 12 tomato plants this season.  

Another thing that just occurred to me.  My father in law recently shared with me that for years he has planted peas earlier than recommended but he plants them deep - say 4-6 inches instead of one Inch. He tells me that this protects them from a late/surpise frost and gives the plant deeper roots.  I wonder if a vacation of this might work with tomato and pepper seeds?