Alternatives to Perlite for soil aeration?

[Lyfespan]

California location.
Sandy "dead" soil.

Pumpkins.

View Image

dead soil aren't you supposed to run N fixing plants like beans ?

 

[Rico Swazi]

I've tried to answer your questions in your post, hope you dont mind

I had never heard about hugelkultur before, thanks for sharing.
It sounds very interesting.


You are welcome. I became interested in the concept late 90s in preparation for the end of the world

Seriously though, it is incredible to see it in action along with Companion planting.


I found this article when googling about hugelkultur.
https://richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

There is a discussion about that very article , at https://permies.com/t/hugelkultur


And also an interesting video: 'hugelkultur - the ultimate raised garden beds, gardening without irrigation':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sso4UWObxXg

Tonnes of vids and articles on the subject. Anything and everything about Sepp Holzer is a good bet


For the plants on your picture (the left and background ones), did you also just pile up some rotten wood and added a layer of soil on top?
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I have gigs of pictures and just need to sort out what best displays the answer to the questions I have included some below

Do you agree on this part in the article? Has it indeed have good water retention? And also no issues with drainage/aeration?

Yes, it has amazing water retention and drainage. if your land is a bit soggy for a good part of the year, building beds above ground as was shown is the way to go. Drier climates will require trenches or slightly raised above ground like the ones h.h has shown.

I do guess that using well rotten wood speaks for itself.
the more rotten the wood, the better the first year growing season. FWIW, pictures below were all of the first season in 2016


Do you see any problems (ie. deficiencies,...etc) with this growing style? Yes, vermin will want to become part of the ecosystem (as they should be) so it is best not to have beds too close to the house ...not that the mice get in the house so much but rather for predators like hawks and owls to join the fun. There will be more predatory activity the further away it is from constant human annoyances.

I wouldn't mind seeing a growlog with this growing technique and also how it was all set up.

I would be happy to share my experiences. I would hope h.h. , MM, Badfishy1 and others would do the same. Just let me know where.


P.S. prepare yourself for an incredible journey into the world of permaculture if you choose that path.

some pics and brief -


I did this bed as a demonstration for the local garden club.

Started with longer logs none of which were younger than 1 year fresh




Packed in 5 yr old rotted oak logs that never made inside to the woodstove.

Wood chips and finer mat'l on top will filter down into voids after time. All this was covered with soil with NO amendments added




The results speak for themselves.
there are lower huglebeds with tomatoes in the foreground also




This is the first year and couln't be happier
Very little water was used to grow these cantaloupe

 

[h.h.]

dead soil aren't you supposed to run N fixing plants like beans ?

There is no "supposed to".


Actually I try to do both.
Pumpkins do better overall and spread more.

In the beginning I pretty much just want to get anything growing that will grow. I don't harvest anything. Just mulch over it.


I import manure and get nitrogen that way anyway.

Cheap corn meal, oatmeal, and Epsoma.
I don't go completely from scratch.

 

[40degsouth]

Hey Art Splf,
Perhaps you could elaborate further, l'm not sure l understood your questions (if they were directed at me??)??
Trees will block available light and sap any abilable moisture and nutrients.
If you're going to build swails against them l'd advise against it.
Cookies might be ok in a good first year soil in this situation but but next year.....no good??
Cheers 40

 

[risasdemaria]

H
From my studies the plant fixes nitrogen from the "soil atmosphere" not the atmosphere itself??
Nitrogen has an effect at higher and lower altitude, on development, due to the differential in oxygen levels but l might be off on a tangent here!!
Cheers 40

yeap u're right, even though imo it'd be a matter of atmospheric pressure more than anything else or nitrogen concentration levels, but yeap, def proper aeration is a must, and the 25% recomended is not easy to get to by any means, or at least in small pots with pleny of organic matter but very very poor structure, just like the one I have been having since recycling material


that's why said fungi from the very begining cuz that spongy structure is imo the best one could achive, though it takes time - no shortcut



my last adding to the compost pile out of a looong list, it's been some shitake mushroom, and some other, appart from all the other ones are not food grade


when I hear from ppl who's been dominated fungi composting for years and they talk about thousands......of species present in their commercial products, I go like, oh well, there's still a long road for me to get there, but, piano piano

 

[risasdemaria]

Sorry, I don’t have a compost thermometer. Only what I notice visually. So I will be the first to admit my observations are far from a published dissertation scientifically. I’m sure there are other factors as to the reason including exposure time along with moisture content. But I know the tomato plant I have sitting on there has exploded compared to others in different gardens.

ok, I asked cuz at higher temperature it'd be normal the compost works better. I understand u haven't heard of Elaine Ingham :?

 

[Microbeman]

I've tried to answer your questions in your post, hope you dont mind


some pics and brief -


I did this bed as a demonstration for the local garden club.

Started with longer logs none of which were younger than 1 year fresh

[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=79959&pictureid=1937506&thumb=1]View Image[/URL]


Packed in 5 yr old rotted oak logs that never made inside to the woodstove.

Wood chips and finer mat'l on top will filter down into voids after time. All this was covered with soil with NO amendments added


[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=79959&pictureid=1937505&thumb=1]View Image[/URL]

The results speak for themselves.
there are lower huglebeds with tomatoes in the foreground also


[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=79959&pictureid=1937502&thumb=1]View Image[/URL]

This is the first year and couln't be happier
Very little water was used to grow these cantaloupe

[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=79959&pictureid=1937503&thumb=1]View Image[/URL]

Burning oak huh? Must be Ontario or California. In BC I burned larch for a long cold night's fire.

Are those morning glory by your melons? Morning glories scare me. I've had so many plants strangled by them.

Have you encountered any N lock up from the (newer) wood in the beds? It almost seems like a myth sometimes because it is seemingly sporadic.
Sometimes when I incorporate not so old wood I have no problems, just benefits, then BAM! another time, everything is yellow; still puzzled but only use aged/composted woody stuff in my old age > unless topdressed of course.

 

[risasdemaria]

Say an area has a slight elevation change, how would I go about using trees to level the slope? Will stacking logs or burying them near the fence be enough, with a higher berm of wood chips, or is it better to have a living tree line near the fence for roots to hold the soil? To help aid erosion rather than level the slope, and maybe hold more rainwater.

I'm not a permaculturist whatsoever but I enjoy always having a look on they have to say, and they do level fields just by adding all kinds of organic matter in there, hopefully more browns so they can build easily structure, but they go piling and steping on top of it, as long as it takes. Obviously that laying ground is gonna be full of organic material, that will finally turn into nice living soil, so that way they get both things, the soil and the level, though again, it takes time


one of their principles is that nothing goes out of the system, so to speak

 

[40degsouth]

You can't build soil without carbon and you can't build humus without clay.

 

[Rico Swazi]

Burning oak huh? Must be Ontario or California. In BC I burned larch for a long cold night's fire.

Are those morning glory by your melons? Morning glories scare me. I've had so many plants strangled by them.
.

near salem oregon, 45N and the oak was free from mother in law's property. It was over five and a half foot at the butt and 80 ft tall but had lived past its prime and had to come down. I spent months cutting up every single burnable branch which is why some went bad (or is the glass half full in this case) and it went good on me.

Yeah morning glories are a pain but I practice live and let live til they piss me off. The flowers do attract a few friends of the garden so they stay for awhile. The melons didn't seem to mind. Proof in the pudding (and the growing) is in eating it. Don't know how well you can see the water left in the melon I ate on the spot but it was very hydrated to put it in mild terms


I am so glad to talk to you about this -

Have you encountered any N lock up from the (newer) wood in the beds? It almost seems like a myth sometimes because it is seemingly sporadic.
Sometimes when I incorporate not so old wood I have no problems, just benefits, then BAM! another time, everything is yellow; still puzzled but only use aged/composted woody stuff in my old age > unless topdressed of course

I have not myself but have seen others have sporadic results both when using both new and older wood. it was very puzzling until a thought occurred to me to ask where the topsoil was taken from from the bed that worked and if the soil was the same

I use soil to cover my beds from an area that had 200 yds filbert tree topsoil delivered so its of a consistent nature. That is the only thing I can think of that is different it what my friends do and what I have done. Their sources of topsoil have all been different

Make sense at all ? or is it

I see you used only aged compost but did you have good soil to wood contact each bed? was the compost the same same?


interested in what you and others have to say about it
Thanks in advance MM (and others)

 

[40degsouth]

I think we're missing another part of the picture which is the genetics and then deeper.....the pheno and geno!!
I've grown a pretty big Appalatcha leaning pheno of a Sun Shine Day Dream that has lost vigour and yellowed out but it's sisters, Bubba leaning, are not as big and showed no early vigour against the cold but stacking and healthy.

 

[Microbeman]

I would only be guessing. Using bottomland silty loam transplanted to raised beds it has happened sporadically. [shrugs shoulders] It may be fantasy but I find white morning glories the worst.

Oregon - almost California. I lived partime in a California forest and burnt oak every day.

 

[Microbeman]

I think we're missing another part of the picture which is the genetics and then deeper.....the pheno and geno!!
I've grown a pretty big Appalatcha leaning pheno of a Sun Shine Day Dream that has lost vigour and yellowed out but it's sisters, Bubba leaning, are not as big and showed no early vigour against the cold but stacking and healthy.

Well I was talking vegetables and not weed most recently here so genetics maybe not.

 

[risasdemaria]

"(c) Soil as a habitatThe ecosystem services provided by soil are driven by soil biological processes, but our concept of soil health embraces not only the soil biota and the myriad of biotic interactions that occur, but also the soil as a habitat (Young & Ritz 2005). The key concept here is that soil provides a living space for the biota, which is defined by the architecture of the pore networks. Indeed, it is the porous nature of soils that governs so much of their function since the physical framework defines the spatial and temporal dynamics of gases, liquids, solutes, particulates and organisms within the matrix, and without such dynamics there would be no function. The walls of soil pore networks provide surfaces for colonization, and their labyrinthine nature defines how, and to large extent where, organisms can move through the total soil volume. The enormous range in pore sizes affords physical protection mechanisms for prey from their larger predators and organic matter from microbial decomposition. Hence the capacity of the soil biota to deliver ecosystem services may be compromised not only by loss of diversity or impairment of function but also by destruction of the habitat via changes in soil structure and physical–chemical properties. Organisms aggregate the solid constituents of soil, and hence generate structure and associated pore networks. These mechanisms occur across orders of magnitude in scale and involve processes of adhesion, coating, enmeshment, particle alignment and gross movement (Tisdall & Oades 1983; Lavelle et al. 1997; Ritz & Young 2004). Biotic activity can also degenerate structural integrity, primarily through the decomposition of organic material that, while it may be a binding agent, also represents energy-rich substrate to a predominantly C-limited biota. The community and the habitat therefore have a two-directional interactive relationship, which encompasses both feed-forward and feedback interactions between the biota and architecture of the soil."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2610104/

 

[risasdemaria]

I recently listened to a MIT physics professor saying he chose physics cuz it was simpler than ecosystems, so, go figure the complexity involved here...

 

[Badfishy1]

ok, I asked cuz at higher temperature it'd be normal the compost works better. I understand u haven't heard of Elaine Ingham :?

Of course I’m familiar with Ingram. Not really sure where that assumption came from.

 

[Microbeman]

"(c) Soil as a habitatThe ecosystem services provided by soil are driven by soil biological processes, but our concept of soil health embraces not only the soil biota and the myriad of biotic interactions that occur, but also the soil as a habitat (Young & Ritz 2005). The key concept here is that soil provides a living space for the biota, which is defined by the architecture of the pore networks. Indeed, it is the porous nature of soils that governs so much of their function since the physical framework defines the spatial and temporal dynamics of gases, liquids, solutes, particulates and organisms within the matrix, and without such dynamics there would be no function. The walls of soil pore networks provide surfaces for colonization, and their labyrinthine nature defines how, and to large extent where, organisms can move through the total soil volume. The enormous range in pore sizes affords physical protection mechanisms for prey from their larger predators and organic matter from microbial decomposition. Hence the capacity of the soil biota to deliver ecosystem services may be compromised not only by loss of diversity or impairment of function but also by destruction of the habitat via changes in soil structure and physical–chemical properties. Organisms aggregate the solid constituents of soil, and hence generate structure and associated pore networks. These mechanisms occur across orders of magnitude in scale and involve processes of adhesion, coating, enmeshment, particle alignment and gross movement (Tisdall & Oades 1983; Lavelle et al. 1997; Ritz & Young 2004). Biotic activity can also degenerate structural integrity, primarily through the decomposition of organic material that, while it may be a binding agent, also represents energy-rich substrate to a predominantly C-limited biota. The community and the habitat therefore have a two-directional interactive relationship, which encompasses both feed-forward and feedback interactions between the biota and architecture of the soil."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2610104/

Hey Ris; I thought I should point out that you are going over information already pretty extensively covered in the forum and you might do yourself the favor of reading some of the related threads before preaching too much. Especially bringing up Ingham's ideas, some fit right in, some don't but most members are familiar with her.

 

[risasdemaria]

Of course I’m familiar with Ingram. Not really sure where that assumption came from.

oh that's great then. Cuz of the temperatures at composting http://compost.css.cornell.edu/microorg.html

Different communities of microorganisms predominate during the various composting phases. Initial decomposition is carried out by mesophilic microorganisms, which rapidly break down the soluble, readily degradable compounds. The heat they produce causes the compost temperature to rapidly rise.
As the temperature rises above about 40°C, the mesophilic microorganisms become less competitive and are replaced by others that are thermophilic, or heat-loving. At temperatures of 55°C and above, many microorganisms that are human or plant pathogens are destroyed. Because temperatures over about 65°C kill many forms of microbes and limit the rate of decomposition, compost managers use aeration and mixing to keep the temperature below this point.
During the thermophilic phase, high temperatures accelerate the breakdown of proteins, fats, and complex carboydrates like cellulose and hemicellulose, the major structural molecules in plants. As the supply of these high-energy compounds becomes exhausted, the compost temperature gradually decreases and mesophilic microorganisms once again take over for the final phase of "curing" or maturation of the remaining organic matter.

 

[Rico Swazi]

I would only be guessing. Using bottomland silty loam transplanted to raised beds it has happened sporadically. [shrugs shoulders] It may be fantasy but I find white morning glories the worst.

Oregon - almost California. I lived partime in a California forest and burnt oak every day.

The other factors, which I am sure you have considered, would be the amount of soil and whether or not there was enough soil to wood contact.
Many folk don't take the time to water in the first few layers of dirt, topsoil, or compost leaving larger than desired air pockets.


Did you have same amount (depth) of soil and good soil to wood contact on each of the beds ?

Type of wood? anything crazy like conifers in the bed? (again, I know you know the facts but just throwing spitballs out there) the devil in the details so they say.


and thanks to Climate change, you are more right than wrong when you say Oregon - almost California

 

[Rico Swazi]

Well I was talking vegetables and not weed most recently here so genetics maybe not.

Always wondered why people feel the need to separate the two
they grow quite well together.
Had good luck with brassicas in the same small huglebed
and hella nice hybrid finished off in the large bed with no deficiencies



pics from 2017, a major drought year shows the power of pulp