When we bought the farm our knowledge of soil was limited to the little bit of gardening I had done in our backyard. It was, to be fair, extremely fertile; the old soils were decayed Brunswick shale that had once been part of an ancient lake bed and the loamy fertile top dressing was made up of composted organic matter applied over a period of more than forty years. My grandparents always kept an old bucket under their sink into which they dutifully dumped their used coffee grounds, egg shells and potato peelings. When it was full they’d dump it into a compost heap in the back yard where it slowly decayed into a rich, black soil. They added wood ash from the fireplace, leaves raked from the yard, the husks of corn, cardboard — whatever didn’t go into the garbage returned in time to the garden. We never planted a great deal more than tomatoes and cucumbers, peas and corn, but what we did grow always did well without the application of fertilizers and it fed my family for five generations.
I suppose I thought that I knew something then, about being able to grow vegetables and simply scaling up to become more or less self sufficient if we planted a larger garden. Of course I failed to take into account a wide range of factors, not the least of which was that I really knew nothing at all about soil itself. I had never given it much thought beyond the cursory overview most people have, that it holds the roots in place and allows the water to be absorbed by them. You had to amend it, of course, with the generous application of organic matter on an annual basis, but that was pretty much it. Soil, dirt, loam — these were in my mind interchangeable descriptors of the stuff beneath our feet.
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Tilth? I thought this was a post about pinball …so, I almost didn’t click on it. Ok, OK, I knew tilth was about dirt … don’t much care about dirt either.
May I suggest more exciting / intriguing headlines?
OR, start each title with “HF:” …. that way we know it’s a Hardscrabble Farmer thread.
That being said, YAWP …. Yet Another Wonderful Post.
“My grandparents always kept an old bucket under their sink into which they dutifully dumped their used coffee grounds, egg shells and potato peelings.” ——— article
I can honestly say that in my parent’s house NOTHING goes down the kitchen drain. Ever. Not even water. They save it in a container and toss it in the back yard.
This results in some interesting growth. Last year, in the middle of the back yard … in a friggin suburban Noo Joisey lawn there grew a …………. cantaloupe. And it grew quite large and tasted just great.
I can honestly say that in my parent’s house NOTHING goes down the kitchen drain. Ever. Not even water. They save it in a container and toss it in the back yard. ~Stuck
Wooo Hooo, finally I have a DUTY to pee in the backyard! Thanks Stucky!
BAB [by and by], shouldn’t the post be titled ‘Tilleth’ as in Tilleth The Earth.
Another interesting post HF, we had the same experience when setting up our garden and orchard plot on our property. We did not have the luxury of the farm animals but achieved the same results by amending the soil with composted organic material collected from the property and our own daily consumption. It took about five years to get it right and is an ongoing process to maintain but the results are always worth the effort.
We have segregated a section of the garden to try out the back to eden approach to gardening and natural soil amendment, This summer held the first crops in that section and the results were excellent, looking forward to trying different types of veggies in that section next summer to see if they do as well.
One of the first big purchases we made was a well used Asplundh “chuck and duck” wood chipper. Everything that doesn’t become firewood or boards gets run through this monster and we stockpile enormous piles of shredded wood chips in various stages of decomposition. If we chip in the Summer when there are leaves in the mix we use that for our garden beds since there’s a good amount of nitrogen in it, the Winter chips are covered and used as bedding for the hogs and chickens and the rest is simply used for burying the boulders and creating a cushion of carbon before we layer composted manure/loam over it. If we bed enough of it against the really big boulders that face south, the hogs will burrow into it during really cold weather since its slow decomposition creates warmth. We also use the chips to line all of our paths and trails and new roadways around the property. Carbon gets locked into the soil, nothing goes to waste and we build the soil depth at rate 100 times that of a forest left to it’s own.
HSF, sometime back you mentioned the Back to Eden site and another site about gardening in the same comment. Do you happen to recall what the other site was?
During this past summer my wife and I spread about 60 yards of woodchips in the areas we intend to garden. Some of that space will likely be left fallow next year but the in areas we will definitely grow in the woodchips are 4″-6″ deep. In the areas that are fallow the the chips are 10″ to 3′ deep. They were all put down over already rich beds or in new areas we first put down a thick layer of compost and grass clipping first, then amended with a heavy application of rock dust. Before it got cold, the worms were partying like it was 1999! It will be interesting to see the progression in the long established beds. I figure it will take a year or three before the back to eden method really begins to pay off.
Great post HSF, thanks.
Stucky
I also use coffee grinds and other organic stuff in my garden. This year our volunteers included tomatoes, squash, lettuce, and huge watermelon. Our tomato volunteers did better than the planed ones. They would spring up everywhere and we just let nature do what it does best. Nice thing about our garden is the no-till back to Eden which keeps the weeds and insects down while our earthworm population is overwhelming.
Cant remember where I first saw this but take a look at this “do nothing” farming idea.
http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Food/The-One-Straw-Revolution.pdf
Hope it’s of interest.
regards,
MKG