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Entry Date
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Nick Name
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Location
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Wednesday, October 02, 2024
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Little Ketchup
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Grittyville, WA
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Entry 207 of 233 |
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Just some musings... Helps me with my sanity to write stuff down:
The things I've been watching and listening to lately seem to question the value of solarizing the soil, because solarizing the soil doesnt promote soil biology. But I like the fact that killing off the bugs & slugs gives better germination. On the other hand, it can give the weeds excellent germination rates too. I've got some new species of weeds that are gaining ground. I ususlly tolerate any weeds that arent causing much trouble, because there may be some benefits to tolerating some of them. But now I may have to switch to a zero tolerance policy for any weeds so that the most fecund weeds have nowhere to hide.
Back to solarizing, I believe some pumpkin growers have gotten good/improved results with solarization. But... perhaps they are adding myco, azos, etc. back into the rootzone at some point after sterilizing the soil.
Another thing I've done that in hindsight seems to be wrong is to make burn piles on the garden beds. High intensity burning is similar to solarizing, plus it adds caustic ash, so its not strictly beneficial. It kills bugs which is net beneficial... but its not making the soil better.
Is it possible to do a "light" solarization or a "light" burn, that kills bugs but not the soil biology? Maybe. And maybe not. It seems like a "light burn" might be better because the bugs may have less time to dig down and escape and the heating is so brief that the soil temp wouldn't get anywhere above that of being in the sun for a half hour. Plus, it adds biochar which could help with some aspects of plant health.
I think from now on I will have to consider no longer using plastic to try to cook bugs. I could use plastic to cook tender new weed sprouts (only the tops) but I shouldnt use it to try to cook out the rhizomes of perennials... it just damages the soil too much to cook the soil this deep. It would be better to dig the perennials weeds out by hand. I dont really mind doing this, I kind of enjoy it.
And if I want to kill bugs & slugs then I should probably do a quick burn (at night, ideally?) of some dry straw or hay or pine needles.
But sometimes the bugs are actually valuable for weed control so there may be certain crops where I dont want to kill any of the slugs or bugs because they'll do useful work eating many weeds as come up and recycling dead leaves and flowers. As long as they dont bother the crop (garlic, potatoes?) too much, its like they hoe and clean the garden for me.
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