Mulch. Just do it.

[TanzanianMagic]

Is there anyone out there who only uses mulch (and maybe an organic tea) to feed their plants throughout their cycle?

Can mulch break down fast enough to provide the plant with all it needs?

 

[surfguitar]

Make a good properly amended soil and top dress with small amounts of neem, kelp, crab meal, dynamic nutrient accumulator plants thru out the lifecycle as well as mulching with EWC/hay. That should achieve what you want

 

[redclover]

Has anyone used rice hulls as their mulch? I'm not sure if it'll allow too much air to top. I'd like to keep my EWC moist n active. My living mulch seems to dry the top out quicker?!

 

[tonybalony]

Is there anyone out there who only uses mulch (and maybe an organic tea) to feed their plants throughout their cycle?

Can mulch break down fast enough to provide the plant with all it needs?

si e possibile per tutto il ciclo

 

[h.h.]

Is there anyone out there who only uses mulch (and maybe an organic tea) to feed their plants throughout their cycle?

Can mulch break down fast enough to provide the plant with all it needs?

Mulch and topdressing. You need good living soil to start with. You feed the soil which in turn feeds the plant.

 

[TanzanianMagic]

si e possibile per tutto il ciclo

Cool, do you have a mulch recipe or top dressing schedule?

 

[Buddah Watcha]

I've been using the leftovers of tea bags, green tea, mint, fruits tea, and a bunch of other herbs, black tea, and some mushrooms to mulch, plants seem to like it!

 

[tonybalony]

Cool, do you have a mulch recipe or top dressing schedule?

pacciamatura solo per outdoor e non in vaso

 

[tonybalony]

pacciamatura solo per outdoor e non in vaso

sorry but i dont speek english

 

[MrTea]

Here's how I set up my mulch. Once I have enough soil in my pots, I plant my seeds (right now chia, micro red clover). I give those a misting with aloe and water. On top of those I put 1/3" EWC, to which I dash some Kelp and Neem. On top of that I add another 1/3" EWC and then barley straw. I also like to keep my stems/stalks from previous harvests. I put those on top of the barley straw. In less than a week all the clover and chia will have sprouted through what little remaining gaps in the mulch there was. The stems take a long time to break down, but the girls love it. Good long term mulch.

 

[h.h.]

I like using a bit of ewc to add life to the mulch. Seed flours, meals, silt, fish hydrolysate, ash water, basil, horsetail, straw, unfinished compost, lasagne...
Mostly stuff from the yard and garden. Not necessarily in that order and not necessarily the same ingredients.
Look for high protein seeds and grind them. I have an acacia tree (legume) that I source from.
I do buy oatmeal. I eat it anyway. It helps to bind everything together.
I like to get a bit of dirt close to the mountains and sieve it for the finer particles.
Wash out some clean ash, let it settle and take the water. collect any char that floats up.
The basil...Got a boatload in the garden, so I'll use it. Make no claims. I just love the smell.
Horsetail grows next door and is supposed to add silica. I tend to think it does.
The unfinished compost is just leaf litter. Lately I've been taking it from around the strawberry plants. (Strawberries are blooming. Been picking them most of the winter. HA!)
Just mix it up like lumpy oatmeal. It will all kind of gel together. Then I break it up into chunky aggregate.

I don't differentiate between the mulch and the soil much as far as content. Eventually the mulch becomes the soil. I try somewhat to emulate what happens in nature. Fires, floods, winds, falling leaves, dried up seed, bird poop. Never saw a bird bury their poop, so I don't either. If I use it, it goes on top.

 

[redclover]

After several weeks of rice hull and mini clover mulch...I couldn't be happier. The rice hulls allow lots of room for the clover to poke through. My EWC stays moist too. I've had probs with leaves and bigger material smothering my clover.

 

[TanzanianMagic]

Does anyone know how exactly living mulch feeds other plants while it's alive? Do their mycorrhizal fungi exchange nutrients with neighboring plants?

Cannabis Companion Planting with Stinging Nettle Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjMUGIcBqNc

Cannabis Companion Planting with Stinging Nettle Part 2 (Results)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvd7ImPkDkQ

Companion Planting with Stinging Nettle Tutorial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK3LXM57bmk

I know that Masanobu Fukuoka grew rice/barley in stands of clover, and never needed to fertilize his fields. He did return all his residu to the field. However, is there any source that would indicate that living groundcover feeds larger plants around it?

 

[sourpuss]

Something I heard, hopin someone else can back this up cause its pretty interesting.

Ive heard clover will absorb nitrogen from the air and provide it back to the soil. U know nitrogen makes up most of our air. So if this is true it could be of use to organics, and I guess answers the qurstion of ground cover supporting larger plants around them.... if its true. I would assume it holds true for many plants and explains some plants having a symbiosis with other plants.

 

[TanzanianMagic]

Something I heard, hopin someone else can back this up cause its pretty interesting.

Ive heard clover will absorb nitrogen from the air and provide it back to the soil. U know nitrogen makes up most of our air. So if this is true it could be of use to organics, and I guess answers the qurstion of ground cover supporting larger plants around them.... if its true. I would assume it holds true for many plants and explains some plants having a symbiosis with other plants.

Usually the claim is that these nitrogen nodules only give off nitrogen after they decompose. What I'm thinking is - what if the mycorrhizal fungi of two different plants could exchange nutrients between eachother. Theo M. is growing in all-mix, which already has some nutrients in it - though usually not enough to see you through flowering. What is also remarkable is the frostiness of the flowers, which would take quite a bit of silica - of course stinging nettle has a lot of silica.

*****

This is about cooperation between fungal networks to signal danger - how about tranferring nutrients between plants as well?

(ICR) Plants Use Underground 'Fungal Internet' to Communicate
by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. *

Researchers have just documented how plants use underground fungal networks to warn neighboring plants of impending insect attack, uniquely illustrating the complex and highly designed interconnected cooperation found in nature.

The research study—just published in the July, 2013 issue of Ecology Letters—is the first such report that confirms and reveals how plants have uniquely co-designed physiologies that internetwork with other plants using an underground fungus as an information conduit.1 This amazing and intricate system allows the plants to readily and effectively communicate as a community, like a natural biological internet.

In a paper published just last year, scientists proposed the idea that this communication occurs through the release and detection of information-carrying chemicals that traverse the soil matrix through mycorrhizal networks that work like information superhighways directly connecting plants below ground.3 This is accomplished because the thread-like fungus grows underground, producing strands called mycelia that connect one set of roots to another. Now this research hypothesis has been spectacularly confirmed.

More...

 

[MrTea]

You quoted a Creationist website for science. Lol

 

[TanzanianMagic]

Usually the claim is that these nitrogen nodules only give off nitrogen after they decompose. What I'm thinking is - what if the mycorrhizal fungi of two different plants could exchange nutrients between eachother. Theo M. is growing in all-mix, which already has some nutrients in it - though usually not enough to see you through flowering. What is also remarkable is the frostiness of the flowers, which would take quite a bit of silica - of course stinging nettle has a lot of silica.

*****

This is about cooperation between fungal networks to signal danger - how about tranferring nutrients between plants as well?

*****

Ok, the phrase is Common Mycorrhizal Networks.

Common Mycorrhizal Networks:
An Important Ecological Phenomenon
legacy.lclark.edu/org/kennedy/
Original publication: Mycena News, November 2005

There has been lots of speculation in the scientific literature, particularly because many laboratory studies had shown that both carbon from the tree and nutrients taken from the soil by fungi could pass between plant individuals linked by a common mycorrhizal network. This research suggested that plants could potentially facilitate the growth of other plants (both of the same and different species), which could play a very important role in seedling establishment, forest succession, and other plant-plant interactions.

You quoted a Creationist website for science. Lol

Not about creationism. And there are lots of other sources too - I don't think I'm in any danger of rehabilitating creationism.

 

[canna woop!]

It's most commonly said that legumes are adding nitrogen to the soil (to be available for other plants) when they are decomposing (the roots or the leaves as mulch).

However, it doesn't make total sense in all instances. what if there isn't a dense tropical foliage and thinning legumes is not necessary? The legume functions are stacked in the desert in a different way, they are important to hold moisture and provide shade.

If the nitrogen is being produced by bacteria while the plant is alive, then in the long run more nitrogen would go to the soil when the plants are thriving or doing their best given the setting. So chopping legumes in this instance would be less nitrogen.

I was watching a video (the secret life of plants) showing how elephants give the acacia a chance to thrive in the desert. I think it illustrates how much more is going on than "nitrogen" to look at the legumes role in nature and with other plants.

to sum I would imagine that legumes fix some of the nitrogen they require, as well as parsing off some to their neighbors. I will try to do a bit of digging around on the webs because it's an interesting question

 

[xmobotx]

my experience has been that N-fixing clover feeds common plants in the container while the clover remains living & can delay senescence ~anecdotal i know but there none the less

establishing networks of fungal hyphae is an important part of no-till & living soil

plants sharing containers help to maintain and moderate moisture levels

new roots can follow pathways left by previous roots

 

[TanzanianMagic]

my experience has been that N-fixing clover feeds common plants in the container while the clover remains living & can delay senescence ~anecdotal i know but there none the less

establishing networks of fungal hyphae is an important part of no-till & living soil

plants sharing containers help to maintain and moderate moisture levels

new roots can follow pathways left by previous roots

Absolutely - no need for plowing, in fact plowing is bad for the soil to start with.

And on establishing fungal networks - this puts a whole new spin for me on plant guilds and having plants with different root depth and nutrient requirements planted close enough together that their fungi can connect and transport nutrients over the entire guild and beyond.

It would help explain why trees and plants in nature grow so well without manuring or fertilizing.