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Natural compost - living soil from nature?

DTOM420

Member
I was doing some work at a local farm this morning and went exploring into the woods down in the flood plain of a creek. It’s FULL of oak trees and nobody goes in there except wild animals and an occasional cow. Well, the forest floor is covered with a layer of partially decomposed oak leaves and a smattering of weeds and local flora. I pushed the light layer of leaves back (thinking they’d be great for composting) and I uncovered the blackest most beautiful looking soil I’ve ever seen out in nature! It doesn’t seem to have the clay content that the local soil is known for and its black, not brown or red.

I’m thinking it’s just a natural compost pile. What do y’all think? I can gather as much of it as I want, any time I want. Do you think it’d make ideal organic soil to use in a water-only recipe? It’s just GOTTA be great for growing but I’m not sure whether to try it as compost, media or a mix that just needs amending. What would y’all organic gurus do, if you were me?

Here is a pic of one of the trees
picture.php


Here’s the leaf littler on the ground
picture.php


Here’s the top layer of leaves pushed aside
picture.php


And here’s a picture of it in my hand. It smell like a little slice of heaven! Better than any soil I’ve ever mixed!
picture.php


Seems like the very definition of “living soil.”
 

P-NUT

Active member
Veteran
I would definitely use it. A soil test would be a good idea. Local ag office does it cheap for macros and a few micros.
 

DTOM420

Member
I would definitely use it. A soil test would be a good idea. Local ag office does it cheap for macros and a few micros.

Yeah, I should have said that. Lol. Test would definitely be in order. Thanks for pointing that out. :tiphat:

I’m hoping el Jeffe, @Microbeman will see this and chime in! I’ll bet the microbial life is incredible in there. In fact, when I get started making IMO1 this spot was the first place I thought of to go and harvest microbes.
 
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DTOM420

Member
Well, I ended up collecting 110 gallons of it. There’s a little leaf litter mixed in but there was a pretty good amount of mycelium growing on it. When I would flip over certain spots, you could see some nice batches of it. It’s going to be good for something so I’m going to collect what I can since I have the opportunity. I’ll end up sending off a sample for some testing.
 
As a quality compost base im prepared to bet its the bomb. Leaf litter makes a damn fine compost with all the micronutrients you could hope for. For organic soil mediums as opposed to teas i never find PH such a huge issue as the humates have a natural buffering effect. Add a little lime and gypsum just in case and a bit of cow or chicken shit and away you go. Or better yet if there's a sunny patch just loosen up a few square yards amend and stand back.
 

Veggia farmer

Well-known member
hehe, ever heard of rudolf steiner? He has said a lot about oak… They say the oak grow on Places With little lime.... And the mysteri is that the bark contents lots of lime... Ca...
 

Chunkypigs

passing the gas
Veteran
That will work great as a base for something like Coot's mix, you will need to add compost and amendments if you want a water only mix.

I collect something similar from the woods and use it as my base for outdoors and in. I harvest from a variety of woods and tree types.

If you can source a local supply of animal waste and bedding to compost you will really be hooked up.

If you have access to a pond or lake go to the shore opposite the source of the water and collect mud from just under water at the edge, this is your free mineral source.
 

Microbeman

The Logical Gardener
ICMag Donor
Veteran
This has been discussed a bunch of times in the forum.

I do not encourage nor do this for 2 reasons. 1/ The fungal structure in soil is different for trees. 2/ The forest needs this stuff. What will we do if a bunch of pot growers go digging up forest soil/humus?

It is easy to do searches in the forum. Also on my page I recommend grassy areas are more applicable to cannabis and vegetables.

One horrible problem which exists in one farming community I lived in was pot growers dumping soil, causing changes in pathogen, worm and microbial populations.

Don't just get a couple of attaboys from forum members and pull the trigger on things that could have negative impact; not just locally but with other people who read this.

Sorry to be a downer but....research; research; research
 

Dog Star

Active member
Veteran
I was doing some work at a local farm this morning and went exploring into the woods down in the flood plain of a creek. It’s FULL of oak trees and nobody goes in there except wild animals and an occasional cow. Well, the forest floor is covered with a layer of partially decomposed oak leaves and a smattering of weeds and local flora. I pushed the light layer of leaves back (thinking they’d be great for composting) and I uncovered the blackest most beautiful looking soil I’ve ever seen out in nature! It doesn’t seem to have the clay content that the local soil is known for and its black, not brown or red.

I’m thinking it’s just a natural compost pile. What do y’all think? I can gather as much of it as I want, any time I want. Do you think it’d make ideal organic soil to use in a water-only recipe? It’s just GOTTA be great for growing but I’m not sure whether to try it as compost, media or a mix that just needs amending. What would y’all organic gurus do, if you were me?

Here is a pic of one of the trees
View Image

Here’s the leaf littler on the ground
View Image

Here’s the top layer of leaves pushed aside
View Image

And here’s a picture of it in my hand. It smell like a little slice of heaven! Better than any soil I’ve ever mixed!
View Image

Seems like the very definition of “living soil.”




This what you hold in your hand is called Chernozyom soil,black type of humus rich soil.. its a special goodies if mixed with ripe
cow shit,good agro lime and other quality mineral part for
creating a rich soil mix... i will never use any aerators with
those soil cause its pity to destroy this nice soft structure..


Best soil in mine country comes from area that haved huge oaks,
some of them 3 to 4 meters fat tree stalks and this was ancient
forest.. some of trees was have unbelivable proportions..

after they cutted forest then they used this soil to grow crops..

everything growed like a charm,that area was famous by agriculture and it still is..

picture.php


picture.php




You found a black gold bro.. :tiphat:
 

Dog Star

Active member
Veteran
Am just say its great soil for growing... people did it here for thousends years to
survive.. also if grow is not huge than why not to use some of it..???


Why not to have Cannabis growed in great soil if organics are goal??

He will use same soil for years reviving it,adding castings or other organic matter
and will not need new soil in his grow...


Things are also have negative side cause you can bring pests with this kind of soil..
just to mention..

Am agree with Microbeman that soil need to be left for forest.. but a fact is that if
reforestation is happening you could actually harvest some soil and still made this move
sustainable and healthy... whithouth much damage for enviroment..

if people just cut and dont sow new or they dont aloud to forest she revive than this
is already bad praxis that will bring bad things in the end.. but if forest is cleaned
and old died trees removed then she know to be more healthier,better air circulation
for trees that stays alive..

its not every human intervention bad for forest..
 

Microbeman

The Logical Gardener
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Sure it can be done sustainably or if a clear cut is happening go for it. My fear is most people don't take this approach.
 

St. Phatty

Active member
I set out last winter to clear one of the crevices on my property.

I wanted to get down to sand & clay.

Turned out that trees were buried in the creek-bed, mostly madrone trees.

Digging them up I got some fantastic soil, obviously castings of some kind. Wood eating insects, termite droppings, ant poop, something like that.

I dug a cubic yard out in 2 different places. At the beginning I was quite ambitious, thought I would bring it down the mountain and use it in the garden.

When I went back at the beginning of the summer, I loaded up a sled with about 4 cubic yards of castings, in black plastic bags.

I did not reckon for the extraordinary slipperiness of the dry madrone leaves, which cover the mountainside. WAAAAY more slippery than snow, literally. I had brought that sled down the mountain maybe 20 times, until that one day.

The sled took off on the dry madrone leaves and crashed. It was still slippery enough to pull the broken sled pieces and the bags of nice soil down to the bottom, but I did give up for the year.

Take 2 -have to admit it would be easier if I just hauled the soil over to the sunny side of the hill, where it has a Western & Southern exposure. A mostly horizontal hauling task.
 

DTOM420

Member
I definitely get the point and I agree to the extent that I don’t want to destroy anything. In fact, my job is caring for several large ( tens of thousands of acres) properties and the wildlife on them. The last thing I’m going to do is damage the land I depend on and am directly responsible for. That said, I don’t think removing some small amounts of soil from multiple spots, to eliminate undue pressure on one spot, is a danger to the forest nor advocacy of irresponsible or unsustainable practices. What I may remove for my personal use is less that is removed by regular flooding. I’m actually picking spots where flooding has pushed soil into deeper spots after it robbed it from other oaks higher in the flood plain - because it’s easier to dig. I’m doing all this with a shovel in an area that saw far more damage in recent years due to farm road work with bull dozers. The forest is still healthy and happy and thriving. I feel like doing something like this personal local harvesting (on private property with the owner’s permission) is far more environmentally friendly than buying a bag of soil of peat moss or coco or whatever that’s been shipped via diesel power half way or all the way across the country. And, which was likely created using other diesel powered machinery, electricity and plastic packaging. In a sum-total analysis, I’d say my collection of some of this soil for my gardening is as responsible as it gets.

Now, I’m willing to join in that such a thing should NEVER be done on public land! In that case, you don’t have and can’t get permission of the owners. Nor am I advocating for the unregulated commercial harvesting of forest material - that’s something completely different and not pertinent to what I’m doing or asked about. I’m all for best practices but that’s what I honestly feel like this is. I think there are far more canna growers (unfortunately) that are growing with salt based nutes that are poisoning the environment and having a far greater negative impact.

Personally, I don’t have an issue with using sphagnum peat as it’s a tightly regulated industry with limits set in stone based on science and not market demand. I think that’s a responsible use; but that’s a debate for another thread. I hope I’m not offending or angering anyone - that’s absolutely not my intention! I have great respect for members of the forum and especially the posters in this thread. Just making the case for how I look at this.
 

St. Phatty

Active member
Now, I’m willing to join in that such a thing should NEVER be done on public land! In that case, you don’t have and can’t get permission of the owners. Nor am I advocating for the unregulated commercial harvesting of forest material - that’s something completely different and not pertinent to what I’m doing or asked about. I’m all for best practices but that’s what I honestly feel like this is. I think there are far more canna growers (unfortunately) that are growing with salt based nutes that are poisoning the environment and having a far greater negative impact.

From dealing with state agencies, I find that the accepted practice for land use is, if you use manual labor and it's just one or 2 people, it's OK. No backhoes & if you hire the local football team to do some earth-moving, that sort of goes against the 'light on the land' concept.

One of the specs for mining is, you can move 1 1/2 cubic yards of material a day. That's way more sand-clay-gravel than I can move, but accumulations of fantastic loam and silt, I could move 1 1/2 cubic yards of that.

I feel like if you're in there loading up 1 1/2 cubic yards of prime worm castings etc. from public land, you're acting as a caretaker. Your presence there is beneficial. Just because you are taking something for your home garden, doesn't mean you are damaging the forest.

I have seen other people trash the forest real bad, e.g. idiot miners with mercury amalgam. Having people who care about the earth around, is a good thing.
 
Sure it can be done sustainably or if a clear cut is happening go for it. My fear is most people don't take this approach.

I don't disagree brother Microbeman- done a lot more soil building than taking in my years. You make a fair point if every oldmate started flogging soil from all over the shop it'd be a bad look for us all. But organic growing right there... Another story.

:tiphat:
 

BerrySeal

Member
Microbe man must be one of them city boy psuedo hippy types. What do they call them? Hipsters? "don't call it California-grown if you bought amendments from Colorado waaaaahh"

Same with the peat preachers and bat shit beraters, "wahhh the bogs, the caves waaah".. Clearing this shit out is doing the environment a service. Man was put here to wipe earths ass for her. Do your homework. There's no shortage of composted tree leaves bog moss or animal shit on earth.

Oak mold and cow patties all day long! Keep it local! Stop buying microbes off the internet harvest your own from native soils. Way more important and easier to adapt local soil than some internet microbes.

Most states have limits on how many lbs of material you can harvest from public land in a given time frame. Thats called permission. And a lot of thought went into that permission by people with more than pseudo hippy philosophy to back their decision.
 

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