Yeardly Arthur

Ours is an east-facing half acre sub-rural lot rising roughly 3 meters from street to hilltop. The front yard is the 'flat' part, rising quickly from the curb, then gently toward the house at around a three feet (1m) total. Behind the house the terrain angles more noticeably, climbing 6-8 ft (2+ m) before falling off vertically into the neighboring property.  It's a little lumpy, but it's easier to think of as a uniform west-to-east downhill gradient, with a slight northern tilt, which is important only in that my neighbor's yard sheds a great deal of water onto the front lawn.

The soil is native red clay, which made for rapid disposal of rainfall, and extremely dry conditions between showers. The front lawn was also host to a long-abandoned driveway composed of compacted layers of limestone gravel and river rock. I've since removed the rock and built a line of 8x8' growing spaces with hugel trenches in each, which now catch much of the neighbor's runoff.

Elsewhere there was (and mostly still is) a uniform layer of lawn grass, sitting just an inch or two above solid clay. We used to watch the rain run off in sheets on its way to the street, so I looked for ways to capture that resource. Besides the driveway garden line, we also planted fruit and nut trees in front. In the backyard I added terraces along one side and dug 2 ft deep trenches across the lawn, perpendicular to drainage flow, and backfilled them with organic material. The additional rainwater capture wasn't enough to prevent significant losses from our usual summer drought, but the difference between this year and our first year here were truly dramatic.

We do plan to scrape the top of the hill flat to build a new art studio with a rainwater catchment system and a greenhouse on one end.

Bryant RedHawk wrote: To get this thread back on track.  Redhawk

Thanks, Bryant, for linking this thread to your comments on potting soil. Solid information throughout. It is rare to hear informed opinions from one who knows deeply of which he speaks.
I was reading some of your posts to the Missus, celebrating your ability to describe obscure terms and complex processes into (keeping with the theme) a palatable, easily digestible narrative.

She observed, "He translates science-y stuff like you do," which I hope is true. I took as a quite a compliment, true or not. I will be reading more of your science-y stuff in the days and weeks to come. Kath Witch.

Priscilla Stilwell wrote:I'm experimenting with a completely different thing based on my hunch that sawdust can be "charged" similarly to biochar.  

I've spent the afternoon snooping around the Permieverse for confirmation that sawdust can make potting soil. Like Priscilla, I have access to unlimited quantities of sawdust, and an even greater abundance of belief that I can use it as a base to add readily available, on-site ingredients to grow my seedlings, without having to resort to titrating chemicals and tweaking specific gravities of solutes.

Almost every recipe available online for making your own potting soil advises purchasing the ingredients listed on the bag of some commercial product, then mixing it yourself. No thank you. I'm cheap - I mean frugal - and ideologically driven to prove myself correct.

So far I've confirmed that bare sawdust is not the answer. Some seeds may sprout (beans will thrive in anything), but very little will flourish as the wood steals away nutrients that should be going to the plants. I tried adding coffee grounds, which helped, but the babies still stopped growing after they squeezed out their first true leaves, and begged to be plugged into real soil to survive.

Not surprisingly, the sawdust that choked out the first round of seedlings did better mid-season. All failed pots were emptied into a separate container where the sawdust darkened as it slowly deteriorated, tip-toeing its way toward compost. Tree seedlings that needed to be repotted did fine in a 50-50 mix of this partly percolated stuff and forest floor debris. The rest of my 'used' sawdust just kept getting daily doses of coffee, whatever dirt was stuck in the bottoms of old pots, and a few soakings from stinky weed tea, all of which predictably tendered the best results yet.

Taking Priscilla's lead, I used some scrap lumber to build a large bin for further experimentation. This I filled with sawdust and coffee grounds, and doused thoroughly with compost tea and more stinky weed sauce. I even added mushroom spawn, which I'd grown successfully on sawdust in the past, hoping the mycelium would permie-ate the substrate and kick-start the decomposition. Things looked good through the spring, but this summer's heat turned the wannabe incubator into a sawdust-y coffin. I finally wound up scooping it all out and using it to dress a couple of the vegetable rows. Through August and September the bin was filled with grass and weeds, hoping to attract crickets and collect their frass. (Instead I got grasshoppers and anoles. One of these days I'll move the weeds to the compost bin, and see if anything more valuable ever accumulated at the bottom.)

After today's reading of Permie threads on the subject, I'll probably refill the bin with a combination of sawdust, leaf litter, coffee grounds, forest soil, compost, and charcoal, soaking well with organic tea and Vitamin P and stirring occasionally between now and next spring. I might even consider giving everything but the soil a pass through the shredder before loading it all into the bin.

If all else fails, I just found out we have a new mushroom farm close by. Maybe they would be willing to contribute some of their spent growing medium to the cause. One way or another though, we're going to have sawdust potting soil, and lots of it.

After reading every post in this thread, I am confirmed and strengthened in a number of opinions, mostly backed by science and forty seasons of watching organic stuff decompose.

1. Leaves are magical. They work in (at least) two ways, Mechanical (weed coverage, insulation, moisture retention and eventual physical breakup of compacted soils)  and Nutritive, by chemical and physical breakdown of lignin and cellulose via bacterial, fungal, and invertebrate digestion.

2. Leaf mold is pre-compost. It just takes its time getting there. Just like sawdust, wood chips, straw, hay, and grass clippings, all of these 'waste' products have advantageous physical properties that dictate to a large extent their usefulness prior to decomposition. All represent valuable carbon and nitrogen sources. All create physical barriers with a variety of properties. All are laden with bacteria, fungi, sugars other nutrients that automatically lead to biological breakdown into new soil.

3. The immediate environment dictates the best use of leaf mold. Left alone in semi-arid surroundings, it makes great long-term mulch. Chopped and mixed with green leaves, grass, Vitamin P, coffee grounds or kitchen waste, it breaks down quickly making short-term, moisture-enhancing mulch and slow fertilizer. Left alone, piled in a moist environment, leaves have all the ingredients needed to make wonderful compost and deep, black, nutritive soil.

My takeaway (and my enthusiastic practice): Save all the wonderful, magical, life-giving leaves (and every other carbon source) you can. Treat them as needed to manage problems and create opportunities throughout your growing spaces.

That's it.

If you'll excuse me, I have to go down the street and gather the mixed leaves and grass clippings the neighbors have left for me at the curb. (Yes, as we have seen throughout this long thread, leaf mold nurtures community, too.)

These days, it's hard to answer this question without sounding political, so allow me to simply say that we have groceries when not everyone does.

That out of the way, let me broaden the answer a bit: We moved to our present home with two objects in mind: 1) We needed a place to live, and 2) I needed enough land to play with the ideas I've been gathering since somewhere around the seventh grade. That's well over a half century in the rearview, including a decade of formal education and years spent foraging, stealth composting and guerrilla gardening in and around apartment complexes, office blocks, and neglected neighborhood spaces. All of these gardening adventures offered food, exercise, and the chance to experiment, testing book-learned theory in real-world environments. All allowed me to improve our immediate environment, turning some very ugly places into productive garden spots.  The plan worked as far as it went, but every one of these projects risked being swept away by anxious landlords, surprised lot owners, curious neighbors or unsympathetic city mangers. Not anymore.

That part pleases the Missus more than anything else, I believe. It doesn't hurt my feelings, either: I plant what I want, where I want, making changes according to principles that matter to me. No longer will I wake up to find my gardens sprayed, mowed, or turned under, and my workplace gone. Instead, we get to see this little patch of ground in a state of constant improvement, which directly and positively affects the lives of the beings who inhabit it - including us.

"I got this new gym membership called 40 acres and a wife," said someone important on the interwebs today. Okay, maybe mine's only half an acre, but tell that to my sore, tired, healthier-than-they-used-to-be muscles. I tried, but it's hard to talk with this big smile plastered on my face.

I just learned that leftover stir-fry, after it's expanded with extra rice and leftover veggies into one or two meals of fried rice, can be easily turned into chicken or pork or egg salad for sandwiches. Just add leftover protein and mayonnaise (and/or mustard, chopped green onions, celery leaves, kale...).

We're in the middle of Year 4 here in our little suburbrural patch on the hill. The first three years were spent watching and noting where water went, as rain flowed onto, across and into the landscape. This year has been spent just wondering where it went.

We have spent a great deal of time and effort collecting and distributing organic material, trenching, terracing and grading surface areas to capture and retain the ample rainfall this area normally receives. This year has been a test to see how well our theories might work, tested to their limits. In spite of being terribly disappointed to see so many of our crops sprout, grow, and flourish, only to watch blossoms fade and drop, and vines wither and dry, I have been pleased to see that the process has taken far longer than it should have. Even in the face of a single rainfall in two months, many deep-rooted plants have proven the benefit of hugelkultur and other water-retention techniques. The harvest may be sparse and small, but we're still finding something to bring to the table every day.

More important, the landscape is showing us where we need to do more of the same over the winter: More mulch. More trenches. More quality topsoil rescued from secret spots around the neighborhood. More collection of limbs others stack at the curb to run through our new-to-us wood chipper. More awareness that serious dry spells can visit us, and better plans for diverting and collecting whatever the clouds manage to squeeze out in the future.

Disappointed, yes, but more than hopeful for the years to come.

I'm sure there are moles here, likely kept in check by the feral cats nurtured by a kind hearted neighbor, but I have yet to see any. The cats certainly got rid of our chipmunks, and most of the squirrels. That leaves me with the other burrowers mentioned above, the worms and grubs which are welcome and encouraged to dig to their multiple hearts' content.

And ants. Yes, I am one of those misguided souls who intentionally seeds his garden areas with fire ants to plow, aerate, and fertilize all my growing spaces, to tremendous effect. If I had moles, I'm sure I'd put them to work, too.

Tereza Okava wrote:

Yeardly Arthur wrote: muffins

any chance of a recipe? those are some fine-looking muffins!

Sadly, no recipe. If I recall, these were made by adding more starter and an extra egg  to leftover pancake batter, plus whatever fruit was on hand.
Most of my cooking involves upgrading leftovers*. My wife always tells visitors to enjoy whatever I might put on the table, because you're not likely to see it again.

*Yes, I do have my mother's and my grandmother's recipe boxes. I peek at them now and then, always linking their handwriting with fond memories.

Thekla McDaniels wrote: The object is to have everything in an aerobic state, not an anaerobic putrid stinking mass ( though I understand many people utilize the anaerobic thing … maybe for the minerals?), so I guess either one has benefits.  

I'm still wondering what the benefit of adding aerobic organisms might be in soil that has grown, well, anything in recent seasons. Maybe alfalfa has something special on it  that might be lacking in your soil, or could be missing from mulch or compost, which are already teeming with all sorts of beneficial microbes.

As far as anaerobic nutrition goes, that's the whole point of spreading manure, isn't it? Anaerobic bacteria use enzymes to break down the cellulose in the alfalfa (grass, leaves, wood chips) into its component sugars and starches, which feed the germs making the enzymes.  Manure  is mostly bacterial mass, with lots of undigested plant fragments and nutritious compounds like sugars and urea (a.k.a. nitrogen fertilizer). The bacteria themselves are made up of proteins (nitrogen) and complex carbohydrates (plant food).

I don't have any animals to make fertilizer for me, so yes, I'm one of those guys with a row of stinky buckets lined up in back of the shed. They break down all the invasive grasses and vines, unwanted weeds, and even a little sawdust now and then added to keep the cultures going, keeping my fertilizer costs at zero. No outside yeast required.