
I've had an urban food forest for 4.5 years now. It's under a 1/4
acre in north east Fl. It's a well established system in production.i am recently having problems in my annual gardens....
They are no-dig. Never been tilled. They started off as a sheet
mulch. I grow cover crops amongst my annual veggies along with other herbs and flowers. Every time in plant a new plant, the hole gets filled with high grade
compost I make, and so does the the immediate area around the new plant. The soil is Always mulched with
straw or mulch hay. Lately I've been using chopped oak leaves because they are free. The
native soil here is a mineral sand with very little if any organic material. Super low in Nitrogen and high in P and K. Now, after 4 years. I'm high in Nitrogen and low in Potassium with a decent amount of Phosphorus.
I make super
aerated compost teas very similar to Elaine
ingham of the soil
food web. Nowadays ,the soil looks nothing like mineral sand but super dark and soft and full of worms when it's raining, when there are dry periods, the soil gets very hard on top, kinda crusty and dry. It's as if it becomes somewhat hydrophobic as well. The structure when dry looks like hard dry little balls and kind of baked looking even under a nice layer of mulch, and you actually have to bust thru the top layer with a small spade to plant. I read somewhere that lack of clay and lots of green manure (constant chopping and dropping) can cause a waxy kinda exudate to form and make the soil somewhat hydrophobic. I never pull up plants ever from seasonal veggies, just chop them at the soil line and leave the roots down there to rot, add more compost mulch and plant. The difference in texture and tilth between rainy periods and dry periods is shocking.The plants are slow to grow but turn out healthy in the end but I believe production is being affected. slow growth, more prone to insect damage etc. I've been
gardening for a long time and thus one has me completely stumped. If you would like to see a tour of my project here's the link on YouTube.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7iSaRzjxL3E
Any help from you permies out there would be amazing, thank you sooooo much!!!