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Grittyville, WA

Walks on his planting beds???

https://youtu.be/1IF-jqHYvUs?t=240

I have noticed that when there are plenty of worms that the soil can be spongy and porous but still support my weigh. I think that's the point he is trying to make.

3/11/2021 6:15:02 AM

Bethlehem CT

If you get the Organic matter high enough you can't really compact the soil. It is analogous to a sponge. The worms are there as a by product of the organically rich soil. Paul Guachi talks about it often with his back to Eden garden method. I believe he is somewhere in your neck of the woods. He would be an interesting guy to meet. I agree with most of the stuff he says, but I do draw a line when people argue that a perfectly fed plant will resist all insects and disease. Proof that we can't actually get back to Eden. LOL

3/11/2021 8:13:19 AM

Bethlehem CT

Local environmental factors do often dictate successes and failures. Different growing reagions struggle with different pressures. I have seen West coast apples grown organically that can be nearly flawless. An east coast grown organically grown apple well your gonna have to educate the public a little bit and change the people's standards on what an edible apple should look like.

3/11/2021 8:20:56 AM

Grittyville, WA

I have watched Paul's videos. Yeah we sometimes get flawless apples that taste better than store bought... but yes he might struggle to grow a cantaloupe.

3/11/2021 8:37:05 AM

Grittyville, WA

About the soil, I thought high organic matter was the key in the past but I have a loamy soil with pumice in it. My soil was damaged by cattle but now I am finding that I can get it to have a nice tilth just by protecting it from heavy winter rain and letting the worms do their thing. It literally looks like a sponge it's riddled with holes.

3/11/2021 8:38:09 AM

Bethlehem CT

The worms do need something to eat.. right? SO the organic matter has to come from somewhere. Either you add it or it comes from the roots leaves and stems of what is growing there. Cattle are often allowed to overgraze a site and so there is very little Organic matter being deposited back into the scalped turf. (except for perhaps some manure). In grasses the higher the shoots the deeper the roots, the root depth mirrors the blade height. Check out the work of Allen Savory I think you would like his ideas on grazing ruminants. He has acutally proven his theories in his native country of Mozambique by actually reclaiming areas that have been desertified. Cows aren't the problem like everyone says they are. They just have to be grazed properly using mob grazing techniques like we would have seen in nature with bison moving over the great plains in large herds. Lots of carbon is stored in the ground this way. Look at the fertility that was in our prairie soils when the pioneers settled and plowed it for crops. All that fertility gets released from the humus once it is exposed to the atmosphere. Crops will thrive for a time, but eventually the fertility will be lost and the soil will be vulnerable to erosion.

3/16/2021 2:05:28 PM

Grittyville, WA

Soil texture is also affected by calcium and magnesium. I was thinking of turning my ground into an "organic bog" of sorts. By this I mean, there are enticing videos on youtube where the growers get fantastic results from heavy amounts of wood/bark chips, rock powder, and a good nitrogen source. But I've been able to improve my soil a surprising amount just with consistent (but more subtle) efforts.

3/16/2021 3:35:32 PM

Western PA

Late Reply!
I am a no dig gardener like Charles. I can walk on my beds, and I do since they are 4ft x 50ft and I don't always want to walk around. My soil does not harden or compact like tilled soil does. Yes, plenty of worms too.
I garden year round. I "feed" the beds once a year with chicken manure compost at the recommended rate and it goes down before the mushroom compost. If I need lime I do that before the mushroom compost too.
The compost does a superb job at keeping the number of weeds suppressed. The weeds that grow are easy to pull out. The weeds do grow well in the compost, but not so well in wood chips that I use in the walkways.
The method has also been a huge help for erosion control since I garden on a hill. Heavy downpours don't seem to bother it much, except where I don't have compost or wood chips.
I was attempting giant pumpkins this year but they succumbed to cucumber beetles. I still got sunflowers though!

7/27/2021 4:09:48 PM

Grittyville, WA

I will add a footnote here... the wood chips from tree service companies could have phytophthora... I'm not sure the same species would affect a pumpkin. It may be worth the risk depending on your goals, but it does seem like that's a risk when using woodchips from a tree service. The people who use wood chips might be offsetting phytophthora by using calcium/ rock minerals that suppress it. I suspect that the plants can achieve enough strength to be resistant when the correct array of nutrients allows them to do so.

7/27/2021 5:17:12 PM

Western PA

Thanks Gritty. For further clarification for others:
I only use wood chips as weed suppression in my walkways.
I'd never use them on a bed I'm planting. If wood chips get under the surface of the soil they will use up a lot of the nitrogen in the soil as they decompose. For that reason, you also should never till in wood chips.

8/2/2021 4:41:01 PM