And I believe if you have sufficient quantities it works as a substitute for peat, to a certain extent, because of its springiness (?).
But not getting it from the forest, making it yourself because it’s so easy
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Cool topic and good timing for me! I’m buying some raw landing I’m going to be building up in the desert. It’s in a flood zone (i bought it partially for that reason) and I intend to use that to my advantage given the desert environment. I’m excited to begin building soil where only sand and some clay exist today.
I intend to truck in dump trucks worth of organic matter, compost, fresh manure and a couple feet of mulch to cover it all up. I’m sure I’ll need other amendments but not sure what those will be
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Plant a few beans in the manure as a test to make sure there aren’t any nasties like herbicides before application.
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Get some equipment In there and move some dirt around to make that water go where you want it…
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That’s the plan, I want to put a pond where the water naturally pools now, trenching the parameter of the property to divert water to that area and grading the rest of it to help encourage runoff in that direction.
I suspect there’s water deep in the ground because the flood zone and the soft sandy soil. I want to trench some 4 inch wells with a mud pump maybe 30-60 ft, however far down I can get them to go, setup to drain and allow surface water to penetrate. Want to try and keep as much water on the property as is possible. I don’t plan to have a well and no utility hook up on this one. It’ll be trucking in at first, then catchment and hopefully that’ll be enough!
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Like @AgTonik said, get some beans up in there.
Cast biochar, maybe peat…
Grow Fava beanz, or even vetch.
Plant grains, keep the cereal grains,
And with everything else, chop and drop…the legumes have nitrogen fixing bacteria and gather N from the rains and atmosphere…and the dead vegetation will add nutrients and bacteria and soil.
Muthafuckin earthworms
You can char some of the plant waste for carbon and burn some for the potassium in the ashes
Spray some EM1 or LABS or other innoculant.
Boom, that’s an amazing farm you got there…
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You turn the cereal grains into bokashi, or ferment them for chicken food. Or feed them to other animals. Or make bread.
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I was intending to plant something like clover as part of cover crop building, but sounds like maybe some chaos gardening with various forms and knock it all down?
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Clover also has nitrogen fixing bacteria!!!
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Shit while you’re at it, broadcast chamomile seeds, herb seeds for teas, and IPM, near the pond!
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I don’t know how practical it is, by my thought/hope, again being in a desert situation, is with the fresh manure and mycorrhizal I could begin to establish a fungi layer that would hopefully help distribute water throughout the property
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That is 100% possible
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I got 11 acres in a maine mountain valley. Beautiful land, shoreline and resource protected, zoned agriculture or forestry only. Got it for SUPER SHORT money. I feel like a fucking king. My sand point well basically pumps out compost tea.
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Congrats @vortal lemme know if you want me to come help out!!
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Clay could be used strategically to make underground pond liners of sorts beneath raised beds to act as a reservoir to keep your sandy soil hydrated. It can also be used as a natural liner for your pond if it can be obtained cheap enough.
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I was wondering about this. Not sure how much of the ground is clay, a fair amount for sure. Clay would be ideal for solidifying the trenching to better direct the runoff.
So many projects!!
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And you can add 50# bags of bentonite and bales of peat to help with water retnetion
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