When the soil is poor , the most important matter to contribute is hummus .
It aid moxie hold onto nutrients , it helps clay drainpipe , it retain water in the ground when it ’s dry – and it has a profound effect on the health of your garden plants , countenance fungous connections to take place while making disease and pest vanish .
We finally got a hard freeze here in Lower Alabama which took out our remaining Piper nigrum plants :
In this recent video – which was filmed right before the frost – you may see me chopping and dropping pepper plants to prey to the soil in myGrocery Row Gardens .
I threw down a lot of mulch and I ’m still throw mulch around .
Getting enough organic matter in the ground here is n’t gentle . We ’ve grown overcompensate crop , chop and dropped , foregather manure and have considered find a trailer load of “ gin trash ” from the local cotton processing plant .
bet at this :
That ’s reindeer moss , a classic sign of poor grease . It ’s a beautiful lichen , but does n’t bode well for the turnips grow nearby .
They look pretty stinking , really :
These turnips were planted by scattering seeded player and 13 - 13 - 13 over an area of defective soil and till it in .
It ’s good than nothing , but it ’s not telling . The plants decidedly show foretoken of mineral deficiency :
Compare that to how upright these row gardens look :
Those plants had Medicago sativa pellet tilled into the area and were also fed withSteve Solomon ’s Mix , which also turn back cottonseed meal .
The minerals are important – but so is the humus ply by the cottonseed meal and the lucerne . Additionally , we till under concealment crops in that expanse , and tilled under the weeds and remnants of our summer pumpkin vine patch .
Still , getting enough humus is a job . I am readingAn Agricultural Testamentby Sir Albert Howardright now and he definitely restates the value of compost . nonplus upright compost takes meter , however , especially withthe problem of toxic weedkiller .
Later today I am going to go manure hunting in the neighbor ’s cow field of battle . I experience the Fannie Farmer does n’t spray Grazon , so we should be fine . It ’s just a constant caper getting compost , especially when we do n’t have a farm desegregate herds of beast with our veggie gardens .
Expanding quickly , as we have , add up with some downsides . It would be in effect to work up up a modest space to a high level of fertility and then move out , but the pandemic of 2020 really threw us for a loop . After go , we put in garden right away , lousy soil be darned , and now we ’re playing catch up .
Out by the shitty turnip piece the county has been knock down piles of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree branch for us :
If I had clip to permit them rot down ( like 5 yr ) , that would give us a muckle of humus . Instead , though , I ’m going to burn them into biochar and till that in . It mimic some of the effects of humous and endure longer . Maybe if I till in the char along with gin folderol ! There ’s a idea .
Anyhow – incur ta melt down . I need to go get that manure .
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