121–130 of 147 posts
Ground up rock dust can be surprisingly effective to restore soil fertility: https://www.remineralize.org/ In general: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rock+dust+soil+amendment
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
Have we not gone all in on soil? Your CPU and GPU comes from the soil. The electrical batteries powering all your electronic device comes from the soil. Take a hard look around you, almost everything "artificial" you can see and touch came from the ground.
Soil is a living, breathing, hospitable community of earth, fungi, insects, water, and countless other organisms. You can’t make silicon wafers from it, but it’s the cornerstone of entire ecosystems. It might be one of the most precious yet overlooked natural resources
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is common knowledge. Even the Wikipedia page states: > There is evidence that there have been significant changes in the Amazon rainforest vegetation over the last 21,000 years through the last glacial maximum (LGM) and subsequent deglaciation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_rainforest Also, there's this: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/10-800-years-a...
the Wiki citation doesn't even have a source, nor is calling that indigenous people made it your last link is about Llanos de Moxos, which isn't in Amazon. you don't seen to understand even basic geography... even if Llanos was 100% man-made (and isn't) and it was part of the Amazon (and not a region that borders it) it would be the equivalent of 2.6% of the whole Amazon area. concluding such a thing because 3% of an…
The Wikipedia source was to back up the claim that Amazonia was largely grasslands about 10-20k years ago. That is what is common knowledge.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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. There are archaeological finds in Europe dating smelting in the region back as early as 5500 BC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pločnik_(archaeological_site)
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170901113607.h...
For the former, which was the hardest, I just kept changing up species until I found some things that would grow. When I tried a new species, I would always add some mulch or soil for enhancement. I now have perhaps 15 feature trees established to various stages and have been able to expand by mulching a more fertile area at the base of the plants in which I have started to place other plants.
For the latter, I turned the earth and removed the majority of waste, mulched the whole thing lightly, wet it down regularly, transplanted some large shade trees (which survived but basically didn't grow for about a year), then began a combined campaign of continuous stick and branch mulching and food waste (surface composting). Even though much of the ground became covered in a weed, which I removed recently, the soil is now dark, rich, and highly nutrient dense, holds moisture, and contains significant planted trees, a forest of emergent palms, and self-sprouted fruit trees and vines. The transformation took around 2 years.
I do still have three challenge areas: two small beds where the soil is depleted and gets far too much sun, and one where the soil is depleted and gets almost no water. All now have plants growing, but only one could be described as thriving.
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…
Frankly, western botany used to sustain the outdated view that planting a tree in a field with full sun was "the best way" because it was "not competing".
It now turns out plants grow better with diverse friends and an ecosystem.
Aspects of this include but are not limited to insect life, fungal networks, resource exchange, and subsoil life such as earthworms as well as soil protection, wind protection, sun protection (most many recent seedlings cannot withstand full sun and deeply appreciate increased humidity).
Just adding NPK doesn't bring in insects, doesn't bring in soil protection, doesn't bring in fungi. In fact, it may very well poison these elements within an emergent ecosystem.
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…
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…
Your comment makes me think of those people who say "plants need light and water". It's expanded, sure: "plants need light, water and NPK" ... but no, that's also extremely naive. The point is, until very recently, western science knew almost nothing about botanical systems. We are only reaching the level of many traditional societies now. (If you are skeptical, check any horticultural reference for the difference in…
Trees in nature are usually in forests, where they grow tall in competition for light. Terra in cultivation tend to be grown surrounded by grass, growing wider and shorter to collect sunshine.