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Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

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Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#91

Post by hammock »

cellular wrote: post #20
ralusek wrote: post #10

I'm a gardening and landscaping enjoyer, but I am constantly confused about the bordering magical thinking surrounding dirt, among other aspects of growing things. If you look at hydroponics/aeroponics, plants basically need water, light, and fertilizer (N (nitrogen) P (phosphorous) K (potassium), and a few trace minerals). It can be the most synthetic process you've ever seen, and the plants will grow amazingly well…

I am terraforming my limestone rocky terrain using leaves. I believe they have trace minerals and the grub larve eat the oak leaves and poop amazing soil. I now have 6" of black soil with earthworms! This is in dry central Texas. Moisture helps microbial/fungal life. Leaves retain moisture. Another key ingredient is pressure/compaction of leaves. I have results on my YouTube channel: theRainHarvester

You ought to visit Iceland. Knowing that the entire island went from 30-40% woodland to being basically 100% deforested in a span of 100 years (the first 100 years following the Vikings arrival), and with the bare ground being fields of barren volcanic rock, to see all the sheep grazing pasture that exists today, gives you great appreciation for the amount of terraforming that was required to get even 1% of the land into that state.

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#92

Post by geetee »

9dev wrote: post #88
MobiusHorizons wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was originally pretty skeptical of the Lomi as well after seeing this very same video. But my friend got us one and we have been using it for a while now. Sure, it has the same parts as a breadmaker, and it's mostly just drying out and cutting down the organic material into more useful sizes, exactly like he says, but when you put in the enzymes and have it run its dirt cycle it does actually produce meaningfully g…

Just remember that any positive effect you might achieve by a lifetime of composting is grossly negated by the production, usage, and inevitable way to the landfill of this thing. Startups like these are part of the problem, not the solution.

That could be true, but maybe OP's goal isn't making a positive impact on the global scale.

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#93

Post by aaron695 »

econ wrote: post #74

Humans can figure out a lot given enough time. While all the hype for us is finance, management, machines, electronics and software etc it is not unthinkable a previous civilization went all in on soil. Terra Preta seems to be quite sophisticated. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

>> Terra Preta - literally "black soil"

Terra Preta is noble savage fiction [1] created because charcoal stains the soil quite deep. (Similar to how the OP 'spotlight' is mostly fiction)

Biochar enthusiasts show the staining in soil cutouts after a few years.

I do a lot of biochar (100+ liters a week) but it has mixed results in the scientific journals, meta studies don't show a lot of improvement.

[1] The Amazonian cutting down of forests and burning it for quick release of nutrients works, but unless a third of your babies die you will run out of forest.

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#94

Post by bgnn »

naet wrote: post #61
bgnn wrote: post #28

I started my gardening adventure with vegetables in pots. It was perfect, plants gave amazing yield, but required too detailed care and attention every day (or sometimes 2-3 times a day in a hot dry summer day). When I have moved to planting in soil I was shocked how worse the plants are doing. Same tomatoes giving 10-15 kg per plant yield in pots were under 3kg in soil. They got more disease issues, more pests (slug…

I had the opposite experience. I had rented a house that had an empty patch of dirt and asked the landlord if we could plant some vegetables there (which I didn't have a lot of experience in). My older neighbor saw me and said that we had great soil in our neighborhood but I didn't really think about it. The vegetables grew amazingly well, we had way too many tomatoes and tons of broccoli that kept growing back and m…

This makes sense as pots require very high precision of soil composition and water management. You need good drainage but a water reservoir under the pots with some kind of wick to keep it watering from the bottom. Also the size of the pot you need is huge compared to your intuition. A single tomato plant requires more than 100L of soil, 30% of which should be perlite, you need some pebbles for better drainage mixed in, and more than 50% should be compost. This often isn't enough for a tomato, so you need to add slow release fertilizers at different levels of soil. In a warm day (> 30C) you need to give 5L of water in the morning and in the evening. The water should stay in the pot but not flood it. Ah, also, they cannot handle cold as good as in soil either. So the pots should be moved indoors when it's too cold, and require shielding from a lot of wind.

If you prepare the pot, soil etc properly, you can get good results. It's very repeatable as it's a very precise recipe. If you put potting soil in a pot randomly it won't work at all.

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#95

Post by bgnn »

hinkley wrote: post #57
GenerWork wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say that you put a layer of old paper boxes against weeds, does that mean you put the broken down boxes first, and the put the compost on the top? If so, were the seedlings able to sink their roots through the paper boxes and go deeper into the ground? Also, what cover crops did you introduce?

Cardboard doesn’t last long when it’s wet, but long enough to smoother the plants beneath it. There’s something about it that attracts the fungi that break down wood fiber. And the continuous surface allows it to spread quickly.

Exactly this

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#96

Post by goeiedaggoeie »

lm28469 wrote: post #79
goeiedaggoeie wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use a Lomi to convert our organic waste into compost I can add to my worm farm and then from the worm farm, mix with outdoor soil and grow in that. A automated a flood and drain system with our fish and cultivate nitrogen fixing bacteria with that, and water the plants with this water every couple of days. Using these two approaches I have not had to buy any nutrients in years and our soil is doing well. https://l…

Why get an electric powered gadget made of plastic and proprietary soft/hardware that will 100% for sure end in a dump in less than 20 years when all you need is a good ol compost bin? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bXZG-kzlhPY

Space is the main reason. We live in the city and the amount of organic waste we (family of 4 + numerous pets) produce is staggering. additionally meat attracts animals. This I run an overnight cycle and I can add it to my compost heap and let it degrade more and no issues with rodents and other animals who dig through food waste. after using this device, in the future I would always grind/break up my organic waste as fine as possible just to save space.

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#97

Post by goeiedaggoeie »

9dev wrote: post #88
MobiusHorizons wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was originally pretty skeptical of the Lomi as well after seeing this very same video. But my friend got us one and we have been using it for a while now. Sure, it has the same parts as a breadmaker, and it's mostly just drying out and cutting down the organic material into more useful sizes, exactly like he says, but when you put in the enzymes and have it run its dirt cycle it does actually produce meaningfully g…

Just remember that any positive effect you might achieve by a lifetime of composting is grossly negated by the production, usage, and inevitable way to the landfill of this thing. Startups like these are part of the problem, not the solution.

it allows us to get all our organic and bio plastic waste for a big family with pets, including most bones once we have cooked stock from it, in a compost heap in the city.

we tried composting before and the volume of organic waste we produced was too much and we had to dispose a lot of our waste in general trash (our location has no organic waste disposal that runs in our neighborhood) meant animals ripped our curb side bags open.

I am not a degrowther to save the planet either, so a company putting compostable products in place of plastic ones seems like good economic activity.

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#98

Post by b112 »

johnisgood wrote: post #72
hinkley wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only water when the feeling of guilt at not watering them is overwhelming.

Pretty much. :)

I water weekly, and even in the winter leave for 4 months!

I overwater before going, and when I come back sone of it is mildly brown. A week later with water replenishment, it's almost all green again.

Makes sense for a desert plant.

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#99

Post by anon84873628 »

bgnn wrote: post #28

I started my gardening adventure with vegetables in pots. It was perfect, plants gave amazing yield, but required too detailed care and attention every day (or sometimes 2-3 times a day in a hot dry summer day). When I have moved to planting in soil I was shocked how worse the plants are doing. Same tomatoes giving 10-15 kg per plant yield in pots were under 3kg in soil. They got more disease issues, more pests (slug…

Interesting that you mentioned compost without animal products, then bat guano. Isn't guano harvesting fairly unsustainable and damaging to bat colonies?

Re: Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient

#100

Post by luqtas »

culi wrote: post #77
econ wrote: post #74

Humans can figure out a lot given enough time. While all the hype for us is finance, management, machines, electronics and software etc it is not unthinkable a previous civilization went all in on soil. Terra Preta seems to be quite sophisticated. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

South America was pretty advanced. The oldest evidence we have of widespread metallurgy comes from the tip of South America around approximately 5000 BC. Which predates metallurgy in Eurasia by thousands of years. Copper smelting was particularly important https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_Am... On the ecological side, some anthropologists argued that humans actually played a major role in tra…

you can also say the Saharan desert played a major role on turning what Amazon is...

now, wow, calling it a grassland before humans 10,000 years ago is to smoke too much pot before reading/making papers. 5,000,000 AD then yes, maybe... /s but Terra Preta and other indigenous interferences is not even 10% of Amazon territory. various other animals are responsible for spreading diversity be it by shitting seed or just moking stuff around to make nests or impress some partner. the rainforest are also there because mountains changing courses of rivers.

[0] "Geology and geodiversity of the Amazon: Three billion years of history" https://www.theamazonwewant.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/C...

[1] the grassland hypothesis (somewhere in the text) and other curiosities about its biodiversity https://www.science.org/content/article/feature-how-amazon-b...

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