Near perfect soil structure. Just add humus. I’ve collected and wheel barreled this up to put in the out of frost zone higher garden. Slowly raising to get above the rocks. (Boulders!)
Dig the rock out and this is what the newest neighbors created to make a small yard:
My least frosts and sunniest spot. Poor, poor grass as never able to till or plow for good grasses seeding. The true soil depth too shallow due to the rocks. D.F. trees grow just fine in these rocks.
Ha! Now I get to play around in the sticky gray and brown clays. Nope. Nope Nope.
Raised beds for foods growing, all of the way!
Steve Unruh
Cost of land and housing is less important right now than the ability to buffer oneself from the storm that is coming. Being able to get some self sustaining infrastructure in place, away from marauding hordes far outweighs the temporary burden of debt. I don’t know what’s going to happen after the collapse of the debt slave masters current paradigm but it will not be worse than what we have now. No one has yet explained to my satisfaction just what will happen to things like mortgage debt after the Fed and the first tier banks go under, but only the gullible believe that that will not occur. Perhaps the current fiat money marketers will try to get one of our debt holding nations, Like China, to exchange your promissory notes for some asset based goods. Unlikely that anyone would be so stupid. Once the cascade of the defaults begins it is hard to imagine how any outstanding debt will be collected. Perhaps the slate will be wiped clean. I don’t know. I do know that when the government can no longer afford to issue food stamps or welfare checks that you will not want to be within a gas tanks distance from a major urban area. When the stock market fails then most pension funds go with it and Social Security payments will no longer sustain a large part of the populous. I believe that either providing as much self grown food as possible or living where barter for food will be possible, will be the thing that tips the scales in your favor. It is a fact that the government has huge stores of processed foods stored in underground facilities. Those will be used as a control mechanism. Good little sheeple will get sustenance allotments as long as the are obedient. They won’t be dispersed to rural populations. I could be full of shit and a fear monger, but if some miracle should happen and every thing gets hunky dory I’ll still be eating non-GMO nutritious food and people reliant on the food INDUSTRY will not.
Sounds like healthy lawn soil. A lot of people don’t have that because they end up killing it off.
I should add the animals get into the compost around here so you need a container anyway. The coons and such go to neighbors piles instead. When we were doing outdoor composting at my parents, I got 22 coons one year in the yard.
Yes muskrats are known for causing tree damage i have done a few removals where they would climb trees close to the waters edge and prune the trees, drop the limbs in the water climb down and haul it back to the feed bed to munch on it. The are damn near a miniature beaver
They make a mess eating cattails too. Tree trimming isn’t so bad. The deer already ravished them. If they didn’t dig holes in the banks like a woodchucks which drain the pond. I could probably live with them.
Yes, Congratulations, Marcus! Renter to Landowner = Freedom. Being the proud owner of just under one acre, I will be following your progress. I’m not a farmer, or a Permie, yet… Add compost, compost, and more compost. That which you make yourself is best. Start with a two or three compartment pallet maze sized bin, and move (aerate) the (keep moist) compost around a lot. You will have a “green” not ready bin, getting ready, and “finished” bins ready for the garden. Best thing I ever had as a soil builder.
Adding charcoal to the compost is a good way to retain the nutrients, but definitely a good idea to let it sit in the compost because charcoal has to be given something to carry to the soil. If you ever get into compost teas I bet that’ll be a quick way to supercharge the charcoal for gardening.
Ofcorse. I probably did a couple of tons by now all thats not fit for sale, forge or machines goes straight to the stable, mixed with bedding. I do deep bedding so everything partly composts alredy in the stable. Twice a year l clear it out and man, thats some nice black compost.
I make my compost out of almost entirely shredded leaves. I have no manure available but I drink a lot of water and never waste the gallons of nitrogen rich liquid I drain from my man spigot. I sift my wood ash from the wood stove through a quarter inch screen for the first sifting. Any char that goes through screen get mixed into the compost piles with the ash. Ash adds a lot of nutrition to the compost. If I didn’t use the rest of my charcoal for gasifier fuel and bio-char I would definitely all it to the compost. By the way after quite a bit of research and personal trial and error I’ve found that 20 percent bio-char is about the maximum for best results. More can actually be detrimental to some plants. 10 to 20 percent is ideal. For potting soil and container mix including raised beds you can substitute that much char for vermiculite or perlite and it will work the same to keep the mix friable. It must always be charged though or else for a year or so it will leech nutrition out of your soil and you won’t get much crop yield. You can charge it with chemical fertilizer the same as with anything more organic. Of course organic everything is better but time is of the essence. Don’t get all hung up on that debate right now. Adding some epsom salts to the water you keep your compost moist with will add magnesium and sulfur. I’ll post a aeration set up I use for making compost. Here is a video by the No-till guy. I recommend his site.
Here is a contribution from the agricultural show, the husband cooks charcoal, crushes it and mixes it with compost, cow dung and pours it with water in which he had soaked nettles, thus “activating” it and creating an excellent fertilizer.
It depends on what organic and how much material you have to work with.
I honestly would start with compost tea, and go grab some healthy smelling compost out of the forest to start using this method (or with substitutes) at least until the end of the elaine ingham part. This boosts the biology in your current soil.
Just my 2 cents. Back in 2009 I got an old Chipper Shredder Vacuum on craigslist, and fixed it up enough so that it makes mulch. Since then I spread all my chopped up leaves and sticks. on the grass. I’ve stopped using fertilizer, herbicide and stopped watering. I just mow the grass with my human powered, reel type mower, every other day, sometimes. The grass stays greener longer than it used to and the ground feels softer when I walk on it. I think I’m building up a layer of cut up sticks under there that acts as a water reservoir. Our soil here is 20k year old volcanic ash, called bentonite.
Rindert
I’m surprised you got anything to grow in it Rindert. Back in the early 70’s it was very popular as waterproofing for underground houses. Still used a lot for pond sealing. Not cheap. I’m talking about pure benonite for waterproofing and I’m sure yours is more friable than that but still a tough row to hoe.
This is a compost bin design that I think has a lot of promise. For a long time I wanted to build a greenhouse with metal side walls about three feet high and build compost bins outside them to generate heat for the GH. This guy is mostly a dome builder but if you look at the other videos on the right hand side there are quite a few that try the idea I originally had from the original Jean Pain trials.
all thats not fit for sale, forge or machines goes straight to the stable, mixed with bedding. I do deep bedding so everything partly composts alredy in the stable. Twice a year l clear it out and man, thats some nice black compost.
