Hi all, I was taking down an old shed on my property yesterday and discovered something interesting. The shed was on sloped ground, about 20 feet downhill from a large incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens). The building was at least 50-60 years old, and on the uphill side of it, the soil had built up about two feet, rotting out the lower portions of the old metal roofing panels that were used as siding. Upon removing the building, I could see that in cross section this entire two feet looked like pure top soil. Like this is what I hope my garden soil looks like in five years (just starting out on this property). It has excellent structure, smell and appearance, and was full of earthworms and sow bugs, and I realized this is the result of decades of litter from the cedar tree washing up against the wall and getting stuck.
I prepared a sample for the microscope and found a truly massive bacterial population more along the lines of
compost than native soil, but I was surprised that I was unable to make out any fungal hypha on the entire slide. I know true cedars are antifungal, and though incense cedar isn't a true cedar, it's more closely related to redwoods and junipers which I think are somewhat antifungal as well.
I'm hoping to hear some opinions on removing this stuff and using it in the garden or other plantings. Now that the shed that was holding it in place is gone, I either need to remove it or it's going to get washed away in no time (and I'm using the area it occupies as a pathway going forward). It looks like excellent stuff except for the lack of fungal life, and I'd hate to waste it as there's probably at least a few yards of it to be had, but I'm concerned that the organic matter its derived from could possibly inhibit plant growth. Does anyone have more knowledge about potential antifungal properties, or any other inhibiting effects, of incense cedar in particular.
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