Fertile Soil Islands- part II

When going with the fertile soil island approach for converting lawn to garden be sure to be generous with the amount of good soil you put into each spot.  This is especially important if you have much clay under your lawn.  If too little soil is used, the roots of the plant you put into it may become root bound similar to that of a plant which is planted in a small pot.  For cuccumbers, squash, zuchinni, pumpkins, peppers, and egg plant; three large shovel fulls of soil removed and replaced with good soil should suffice.  For tomatoes, use enough soil to fill a five gallon bucket.  For potatoes, don't remove the poor soil for creating a hole to put in good soil.  Instead, break up the clay soil and mix in some good soil.  For leafy greens, forget the fertile soil island approach and build yourself a raised bed over the lawn using the sheet mulching technique.

Fertile Soil Islands

In researching how to have a great garden one will quickly read about the importance of having great soil.  Great soil in my opinion is of the utmost importance to gardening success.  Obtaining and preventing its loss should be goal number one before planting a single seed.  Dark soil, rich in organic material, intertwined with a living matrix of fungi and earthworms, that is well aerated, but  yet capable of holding onto moisture not only makes  for great growing but also significantly reduces labor by reducing need for watering.  I have to admit that I have tried cheating in this category to expand my garden’s size without spending too much money.   Instead of buying compost, I purchased loam screened from tree stumps and mixed it with peat moss.  The result was a soil that would grow vegetables, albeit with the need to use fertilizer and frequent irrigation.  Older parts of the garden in which I had used compost spread over an area previously tilled and planted with clover performed much better and required little watering even though the summer was dry.  Thus the difference between growing in a “living soil” verses growing in a dead soil.  Had I been wise, I should have bought compost and rather than spread it out all in one large area to make traditional rows, I should have strategically placed the more expensive soil into fertile islands.  Why spread the soil all in one area?  It is not like I need great soil for the areas I walk on.  Why not just put the good expensive soil in just the spots where the plants will be?  I did this one year with pumpkins and it worked great.  I removed three shovels full of soil and replaced it with compost in just the areas I wanted a plant.  For pumpkins and other vine type plants which likes lots of space like squash and cuccumbers, such a strategy works and will greatly reduce the amount of good soil used.  Although some garden experts will warn that trying to convert lawn to garden can result in disappointment, the use of creating fertile islands of soil can overcome the poor soils often found underneath lawns and allow significant acreage to be converted to garden for minimal expense.

Cutting down trees and what to do with them

When making room to farm, you may need to cut down some trees. What you do with the trees once you have cut them down varies according to need. Our heating is supplemented by our woodstove. When I cut down maple, oak, poplar, or birch, I cut it up for firewood. I could easily just as well cut logs into longer lengths, drill holes in them and inoculate with mushroom spores. Someday soon, I will try my hand at mushroom culture. If the trees were small and I had a chipper, chipping the wood for animal bedding, composting high nitrogen materials, or mulching would be a good use. However, getting a chipper is for another day. In the past when I cut down pine, I wouldn’t keep it for the wood stove, I would burn it in the back field as brush. The ash being high in calcium and other minerals are good for our calcium poor soils (thanks to acid rain). Growth of crops where the ash is spread has always been better. More recently when I burn brush, I do it on a rainy day. With big piles and flames going 30-40 feet in the air, a good fire suppressing rain is nice to prevent torching more than just the brush pile. Prior to all the hot coals completely combusting to ash, I spread them out with a rake and let the rain extinguish them. The left over charcoal can then be tilled into the ground and incorporated as biochar for making homemade terra –preta soil. Instead of slash and burn, I am now looking at slash and char. My soil in the back field is low in organic content in some places and the incorporation of char is the fastest way to increase soil carbon content. When char is added, you also need to have high nitrogen fertilizer added, otherwise the skewed carbon:nitrogen ratio will inhibit rather than help plant growth. Slash and char is an ongoing project and I will write more on it later. This past fall, I found another use for the pine. I made my own split log fence. I put a section up along the driveway. This upcoming year, I will do some more, but with higher posts and with some electric wire along the top for some livestock. More later on making your own split log fence- its really easy!