posted 14 years ago
it is just that rotting organic matter is what produces nitrogen though rotting stuf also eats nitrogen while it rots and then lets go of it agan when its finished. the bacteria tha trots things take up a lot of nitrogen, howerver livign wind has put on lots o fhorse manure so nitrogen for the bacteria that rot down organic matter and for his plants, his garden came out great.
Organic matter makes the soil texture adequate for plants intit binds soils and in the case of clay binds while it loosens. it absorbes more moisture than many soils and it helps them stay aerated and it keeps soils warmer as the rotting vegetable matter warms the soil. It is also the base material of fulvic and humic acids that help with plant uptake of nutrients which is to say digestion.
Also organic matter on top of the soil prevents the water evaporating out of the soil.it traps the moisture that is coming out of the soil and i sort of gave up on mulch when my husband went around taking the mulch off the trees i had put it on because he is into alcorques. that is digging a hole round trees that will take water which will soak in swale style.
Alsoi plants seem to feed right off mulches the roots of some of my balcony plants went straight to the corks i put in the bottom of some pots one day when i did not have enough bits of broken brick to put in the pots for drainage. They do eat amino acids which contain nitrogen as well as straight nitrogen. but still it is not generally said that they get their food straght off organic matter. In Japan i certain type of pines seeds are said to grow best on old stumps of pine trees where there are more nutrients than their are in the ground.
If you put seeds under the cardboard i think they are not likely to come up through it, so plant the seds above the cardboard. or through holes in it. .
Plus a healthy collection of bacteria in the soil and fungi and fungi produce lots of antibiotics and anti virals, seems to keep plants healthy and you need a lot of organic matter to feed a healthy crew of organic matter digesters. Sir Albert Howard of organic farming proved that his plants and livestock kept healthy when the plants had soil that was as nature meant ift to be teming with microbes, look him up in google.
As Brenda Groth says rotating is partly used so that the illness that do for a potatoe say dont find more potatoes to eat nexty year in the same spot next years so they cant really settle into any one place because they dont find fiood in that place r next year because you have changed crops in that place different illnesses affect differetn plants so if you grow conr where before you had potatoes then your potatoe eating bugs die of lack of food. . The natural balance of microbes and insects that keeps illnesses in place serves to fill the place of that function of rotatoin crop farming.
Bill Molison says that you dont have to explain things just give a simple recipe and it will work but i believe people have a mind of their own and they will go and experiment for themselves so it is best to tell them the whys and wherefores, you cant just believe they will follow simple recipies. At least let them know what they are playing with when they experiment as far as you know.
Our mind was made very efficient because things are complicated. If our minds weren't incredible, then we would not survive. A friend of mine says our minds developed in order to try and understand each other . Those who like the simple are likely to mess things up as are we all because we dont kniow everything but art least we are quicker rectifying if we know things are complex and we are better off if we admite the ego reducing fact that our neighbors minds are complex too and they can undersatand the complex. That is a basic of the modern world, give your labourer a education and they become university profesors to imagine they cant handle the complex is apart from beign unkind, it means you cut them out from a lot of group activities, downright old fashioned and classist to imagine they cant understand everything and if we dont say as much we will role back into the middle ages. agri rose macaskie.
