List of Dr. RedHawk's Epic Soil Series Threads

As I write more threads on the subjects of soil, compost, and other related materials I will be adding the link to this page so it is up to date.

I thank Nicole Alderman for coming up with this idea and implementing it.

Redhawk

Congratulations, Dr. RedHawk!  Very happy for you.  
I'm interested to delve into these threads sometime too.

Congratulations on your achievement. It's wonderful to have all the threads here in one place. I've often referred to your information and appreciate that you share so much that is useful. Thank you for your time.

"If thanks were weighed in grams my fellow readers and I would owe you tons"

Thank You Dr. Redhawk

P.S. hope your wife is doing well

I finally completed reading this entire series in sequence last night. Some of the articles I had read previously. More than once. I've been gardening & learning about soil for a long time. This series really helped me put many of the pieces of the soil & web of life puzzle together. It answered many questions & of course raised others. It gave me confidence that I have been doing most things right & also clarified what else needs to be done. The timing is perfect too. I recently became steward of a 100+ year old family cattle ranch. As far as the soil and plants go, things are already changing for the better.

Well done indeed. Thanks Dr. Redhawk!!!  

Bryant RedHawk wrote:As I write more threads on the subjects of soil, compost, and other related materials I will be adding the link to this page so it is up to date.

I thank Nicole Alderman for coming up with this idea and implementing it.

Redhawk

Hi Redhawk,  

Thanks for all your wonderful work. I read much of your posts on soil types with interest, but I could not really find one that seems to well describe my soil type here.  I live in NW Arkansas, SW Ozarks and the soil is well more rock than soil.  We live on horizontal sheets of rocks that seem to reproduce little baby rocklets. It is almost like the earth is trying to cleanse itself of impurities.  The more rocks you remove, the more that seem to spontaneously appear.  It just pushed them to the surface.  The rocks are quite jaded and brittle.  There is quite a bit of chert so Arkansas could have been really made.  You don't want to walk in bare get as you can get nasty cuts.  

It is intensive work to make this dirt into soil.  It is actually too well drained.  It is not particularly sandy looking but the large quantity of a variety of sizes of rocks seen to make it drain very well.  I suspect that the rocks have also weathered well into sand, but I have not had it tested since we moved here.  I am going to try the no till method starting with cardboard and I.have loss off wood chips courtesy of the local electric company.  The drainage is so good that when there is a water leak the local water utility cannot always locate them at least not in a short order.

The weather is temperate, with a couple months of of and on freezing temperatures.  The summers are quite hot and can get humid because we are on a very large lake.  However much of the time it is quite dry with not a lot of rain.  With these limited info given, do you have any immediate thoughts.

Thank you again.

Sincerely,

Ralph

Ralph Kettell wrote:...I live in NW Arkansas, SW Ozarks and the soil is well more rock than soil.  We live on horizontal sheets of rocks that seem to reproduce little baby rocklets.

I definitely know what you mean.  Here in NE OK we call them Oklahoma spuds!

hau Ralph, Your soil is just like mine (Ouachita Mountains) The USGS designation is "Stoney, sandy loam" which means we can grow great rocks and our soil drains down to that Clay layer that extends up from the bed rock, the clay is terra cotta clay.

What I've been doing is mostly chop and drop style composting/mulching and it is working pretty well.
I use a broad spectrum seed mix of clovers (Crimson, White Dutch, Sweet(yellow), rape, alfalfa, hairy vetch, field peas and annual rye grass. This is allowed to grow to about 8 inches then I mow it down to around 1./5 inches tall letting the cuttings lay.
In areas we garden for our vegetables I use no spray straw bales, two wide and however long we want, these are wetted for 3 weeks and spent coffee grounds and Epsom salts are spread on the tops and watered into the  bales to get them to start composting.
We have done this for 4 years now and we are getting deeper top soil from putting down the new bales every two years, on top of the totally collapsed old bales, we also have done a concrete block surround of the bales to hold them in place as they fall apart.

I'll get back to you with some other ideas we have used and found to work well for us.

Your piles of wood chips are golden, use them in 3 to 4 inch thick layers where you want to grow things.
We use the rocks that come up to build terraces down our south slope so we will be able to use those areas for gardening as they get completed.

Redhawk

hello from Canada. I am new to permaculture,but not to growing. I have finally got my own piece of land to grow my own.At the ripe old age of 50+ I want to get it right,cause there wont be a second time.The land was used for corn before but has been left to overgrow last few(looks like there is white clover). My question is should i till(farmer will do it for me,pretty big area,) and do a cover crop or get mulching material and do small areas at a time? I will also be planting trees and bushes(food forest type)

hau Andrea, since corn, a very heavy feeder, was row cropped there I will assume that chemical fertilizers were used. Clovers are primary succession plants that fix N, draw ammonium loving bacteria (they break down un usable ammonia compounds into plant usable forms) and they attract the nodule living bacteria that do the same, and clovers also attract certain root needed fungi.  Instead of tilling a close to surface mowing ( chop & drop) might be the best choice for the first year.

Redhawk

thank you. I am also contacting tree trimmers to see if i can get some. I read your wood chip posts