Alan Blue Heron Milinazzo-Barnett

Damnit, Jim! I'm a gardener! Not a photographer!

I've been trapped in Albany OR for two growing seasons (I really live in Ningbo, China) converting a 20+ year old grass backyard into an organic garden on its way to a food forest.

The soil here is river alluvial rock, sand and clay.  So, as an old school permie, My mind goes directly to the old saying, "Dirt First!" My first season was centered around mulching, composting, vermiculture and pH balancing...and growing soil-enriching vegetables.

After a miserable 2nd growing season where forest fire ash laden skies prevented decent sunlight? from reaching the ground, I'm going into winter with the intention of punching through the clay layer situated 2-6" below ground level.  This 6-12" thick layer was handled previously with a post-hole digger and sweat.

But, thanks to Permies.com, I discovered Daikon radishes!  This winter instead of dreading Spring where I wonder if I'll get any real root growth, I'm sitting inside where it's warm, drinking tea and watching the Daikon sprouts growing throughout the garden, slowly punching holes through the clay layer!

I've always been a believer in the principle of let nature takes its course and follow in that path.  So, I'm letting the Daikon grow, punch holes, then green mulch in place, grow worms and leave me time to plan keyhole garden plots instead of digging through the clay next spring.  Yahoo!

Thank you, Permies.com!

Since I’m a compost in place, deep sheet mulching guy, I don’t encounter many weeds in my garden. When I do they’re usually at the edges where the interesting things happen. There I bump up against my dislike of “weeds.”  My definition of a weed is a plant I don’t like in a place I don’t want it. So, I get to consider whether that thought is true. The weed’s appearance is really an indicator of a possible prejudice on my part. I may not have truly considered what function this plant could possibly serve in the overall design. Do I pull it and compost it? Do I stomp it into the mulch? Do I let it be and observe what its growth cycle is and possibly learn when and what I can do to include it into the design. So, all that brings me to the question, “What the hell am I going to do about these damn weeds?” but from a PC perspective not a pissed off gardener perspective.  

I once had that thought, “Whahh? The Problem is the Solution?”
So, thinking outside the box and along the edge where interesting things happen, I had to accept the reality of what is happening over what I wanted to happen.
I had an immense bloom of mushrooms in my wood chip walkways (see pic).
I broke my back clearing them and bagging them.
All the while and in between the swearing and aching back groaning, I heard the TBS mantra in the back of my tiny little mind, saying, “Do you really want to throw this much production away?”
So, I posted a pic and a question and I learned I can compost these mushrooms and bury them under deep sheet mulch this fall. Permies to the rescue! What was an eyesore is now something I can’t enough of in my urban lawn to food forest project, compostable material. Thank you all for helping a tropical permie learn temperate zone PC!

They weren’t in my beds but in the walkways I currently have. So, my plan is to to compost then and use them in the sheet mulch at the end of the growing season. I’ll thick layer mulch and amend to bring down the pH to a reasonable level for next spring. Thanks for the help, I really didn’t want to throw all that organic material away.

Thank you!  This info was spot on regarding the description of my mushrooms.

So, I should be able to compost these in my compost pile and be able to spread them under heavy mulch next fall to winter over for 2022.

Am I correct in that assumption?  I really hate let so much organic matter get away from me!

Since my last picture, I gathered one large green waste container and 3 large construction garbage bags full of mushrooms.  I've got stashed along the pumpkin/melon/cantaloupe patch until I know what I can do with them.  I'd hate to dispose of them off property if there's some usefulness to them.

Here's a couple closeup pictures from the newest batch that showed up after a 3 day rainy period.

I'd appreciate anyone giving me any information on them.  I was unable to fine any info.  Everything I found was about edible mushrooms and foraging.  No need here, the bloody things are everywhere I put don wood chips!

Everybody here is working at fostering fungi growth, but I'm seeming to be going into another direction and I'm not sure what to do with it.
I've recently begun  working another urban garden project, but for the first time in a temperate zone.  I'm originally from the Big Island of Hawai`i (Ahhh! Miss that perpetual springtime!) and we don't have winter kill there.  We can even make annuals into perennials!
A little history first:  Spring of 2020 - Rototilled every square inch of lawn we could find, buried it all under 8 inches of wood chips (free from the city wood lot), Planted my soil block veggies on a square-foot plan.  I had to get some food planted while figuring out what to do. Got a great garden.
Last year was the first season in this climate, then came October!  Arghhh! Everything died!  So disappointing and so cold!  I couldn't even go outside until the temperature reached an unfrosted, non-numbing temperature of 60 degrees!  (Average year-round temp in Kialua-Kona is 72 degrees).
So, being the persistent permie we all are, I started again this spring and after winter mulching with spoiled straw, my soil was looking beautiful though alkaline.  The standard answer was more compost and things began to look a little livelier.
However, while my soil blocks were sprouting, I had to go to Spokane to wish my Mom a joyful transition as she passed away.  And when I returned, I found this: mushrooms covering the woodchips. (see pic attached).  We don't get this in Hawai`i,  We mulch with lava chips (kidding). We're mostly chop and drop folks. We be da lazy, bruh!

So, what are these?  Are they edible? Do I leave them, gather them for compost, or what?  Totally out of my league here. I wanna go home to eternal spring where no fas' fast like here!

I’m trapped in central Oregon due to CoVid19 and can’t return to China where I’ve lived for the past 10years. So, I’m staying at my business partner’s home in a standard urban subdivision. With his permission and help, we rototilled out all the lawn on a 50x100 house lot and replaced it all with wood chips we got for free from the city’s wood lot. That raised eyebrows among the older neighbors. Then I scored 80 bales of spoiled straw and mulched the entire place. More eyebrows went up. Meanwhile I put in a no till mixed square-foot garden in the back yard, straw bale raised beds and plunge planted all the soil blocks of approximately 35 varieties of vegetables in companion patterns (I had to have something to eat!). That was last summer. This year I put in two strawberry beds and told everyone that came by to pick a few during their evening walk to snack on. Now I’m giving away all of last year’s annual starts that I sprouted. The neighbor are now stopping to chat and ask what am I doing next. I now know more neighbors than my business partner who has lived here almost 4 years. I’ve also given at least a half dozen chats regarding permaculture to traditional gardeners. Most are older and no-till, no-weed really appeals to them!