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Regenerative Gardening - Advanced Organic Farming Methodology & Cutting Edge Practice

Mate Dave

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Regenerative Gardening - Advanced Organic Farming Methodology & Cutting Edge Practice

The Closed Loop System - Permaculture Techniques - Green Manures & Cover/Catch Crops


No Till Regenerative Living Soil
(Pots)

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Regenerative Soil Building (LandSlide)

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(Rocks) Good For Drainage & Mulching

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(Goat Shit) Benefits; Does not need composting. Non smelly. Harbours very little insect life. Easy to pre-germinate all wild seed bed within mix.
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Mate Dave

Propagator
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Wood Ash

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Pine Bark & Horticultural Sphagnum Moss Peat

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Bio-Char

I like to cut the weight out the mix removing the 40mm & up stones with a fine screen. BioChar chips provide aeration whilst adding carbon.

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f-e

Well-known member
Mentor
Veteran
Jesus Dave. That's some real commitment. I know your going to really appreciate the smoke after that much effort. Good thread title to.

Your ground condition makes my heavy clay soil look good. My cover crop is 'bugger off for 6 months, and see what happens' Though I'm told alfa alfa might be better.
 

Mate Dave

Propagator
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Thanks f-e.

I thought about putting some chelated Iron into it but currently all I am adding is Hay, Wood chips, Rabbit poo & urine + a few other things..

I'm wetting it down with worm juice & cooking it in sacks in the sun..

Just waiting for pic's to upload & I will progress with some of the steps so far.

I have a few compost heaps on site which will get fed with Lactobacillus serum & Compost teas during the warmer months so far I have tried to keep them moist & warm to process it into humus.

I think wrapping them in plastic helps in the warm weather to prevent excessive moisture loss. I am going to screen them see what is what & layer the non composted detritus like a lasagne into a bigger heap & piss on it.

I have also got a few lasagne heaps of Goat Shit & other organic matter to work with.


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Mate Dave

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Veteran
Welcome Wally

:lurk:

This is a John Innes Soil recipe that has had millions of pounds of research behind it's formula.

Mix:
7 parts sterilised loam
3 parts Sphagnum moss peat
2 parts sharp sand

Add:
1.8gms per litre ground limestone (1.8kg per cubic metre)
9gms per litre John Innes Base fertiliser (9kg per cubic metre)

I think we can do a bit better then that for some dope growing.

I can see lots I can take from this formula & use as a guideline for the amounts of Topsoil/Loam to use. "This contains the rockdusts & sand" :) I will have to try hard to get the mix to hold together & crumble for me to be happy with it as soil potting mix.

I need to add some bark to this mix for helping with the acid alkalinity base reaction within the propagation media & then it further serves as a valuable structure adding body to sandy soil over time & facilitating better ion-exchange. It retains water & wicks better than rock flour.

We also need some more diverse organic matter to retain moisture & make the mix friable & give better structure over time & a greater range of nutrition.

Garden Compost, Goat Shit, Sphagnum Moss Peat, EWC & CocoPeat are what I was thinking of adding depending on the season & application & I will need some way of changing the pH.

I need the nutrient contained within the mix to be instantly available & last the duration so to go one step further we shall opt of of the tailor-made fertiliser pack & add some ameliorants to achieve a baseline then maybe have it tested.. meh Stuff grows in it ..

These marine & botanical extracts extracts will be added (Per 2 Gallons of Dirt)

Kelp 1 TSP (Contains upto 70 trace minerals & is a source of B12 to feed the soil)

Crab 1TSP (Phosphorous Calcium Chitin a powerful pest preventative, it activates (SAR) within the plant due to the presence of the Exoskeleton in the rhizosphere boosting plant vigour)

Neem Meal 1TSP (Prevents soil bourn insects & P&D whilst providing nutrient over long periods through nitrification)

Oyster 2TBS (Calcium)

Gypsum 1TBS (Minerals, Increases bioavailability of Calcium & Magnesium)

Azomite 1TBS (Minerals Will start to top dress longterm keeping structure in existing beds)

I will look @ how things grow in it before I worry about soil tests.. After the cooking I will do a basic structure test & use a digital meter & water.


Having seen how active the Gro-Kashi can be I might have to buy some Woo-Woo:woohoo:

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Worms, add worms :)
 

art.spliff

Active member
ICMag Donor
Great idea :tiphat:

Organic matter loosens compaction, retains moisture, and buffers pH. Amendments like manure add organic matter and help with growth and flowering.

Cover crops increase organic matter and fix nitrogen into the soil.

Rock dusts, kelp or mineral supplements may benefit depleted soils. Plowing, tilling, or sifting creates the soil tilth essential for ideal growth. A cover crop can be harvested for food, compost, or turned into the soil.

Cold season cover crops may be planted spring or fall.
 

Mate Dave

Propagator
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Cover/catch crops.. I'd wrote a bit about it & lost the post somewhere during my edits. I even had the Pictures up .

I was saying that it would be nice to work with natural occurring vegetation here rather then fight it;

Cough-grass is self sterile & forms tufts from clonal groups propagated via rhizomes & that is good @ loosening soil, I can pick it daily adding green matter to the compost pile & it won't interbreed & contribute to a wild seed bed.

Oxalis pes-caprae is non-native it is beneficial during the early season as a valuable nectar source for insects, it propagates via rhizomes & is used as a chop & drop, cut & come again type in situ aiding the nitrogen cycling bacteria.

I need to find a minimum of 7 more annual legumes, a mixture of Dot, Ground Cover & Edging plants annuals or perennials that I can propagate by division or seed early in the cool season that will survive the arid drought during summer providing chop & drop cut & come again material to make hay while the sun shines to spread a closed loop wild seed mix around the land increasing the biodiversity, biodefence & fertility by building soil resistance & structure.

I would like it so that I can harvest some seeds throughout the year so that there is always something in bloom as a nectar source.

By using plants that will form clades or provide symbiosis with the main crops being grown by either aiding in fertility attracting pollinators or releasing volatile plant phenols either via root exudes, glandular trichomes or insect pheromones.

These crops will be grown to help preventing the soil overheating & killing the microbial life, increasing water retention.

Dead mulching will only increase the risk of shallow rooting whilst a living mulch will go some way to stopping compaction & capping & structure loss from the 1st rains. Underseeding or overseeding is useful practice to provide established seedlings for relay cropping, intercropping & double cropping.

Yarrow (Has the ability to make other plants exude more volatile oleoresins when grown in a guild benefiting the main crop through increased (HPR) biodefence. It cycles potassium & copper.)

Clover

Kidney vetch

Tulbaghia (Useful Phytochemical exuded from roots under exposure to pathogenic fungus. Symbiont modulation)

Sunflowers

Sweet Blue Lupin (Extensive tap root development that mines subsoil for Potash. It can absorb water & nutriment unavailable to other plant species. It is fairly efficient at extracting phosphorous from this soil. It produces very tiny roots and they exude citric acid that buffers the immediate root zone & they actually raise the pH and make phosphorus available. Bad fertility does not hurt this crop. It can be cut for hay & will make high quality silage that rivals excellent alfalfa.

I will add a new seed crop each season & try to build as I go by either direct sowing early in the cold season or planting plugs in summer.

An addition to this Cover-cropping the garden will have an area that I call the library containing plants for use in compost tea making that are not suitable for roles in the rotations but suit continual cropping via attracting pollinators & providing biodefence..
 

Mate Dave

Propagator
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Is there a way to check the edit history of posts? I had defiantly wrote out a post on the cover-crops with pic's added as I researched the Bermuda buttercup & Bermuda grass & remember writing about nitrification processes :( I even got the book still open with quotes I used..
 

Mate Dave

Propagator
ICMag Donor
Veteran
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Lupin are up on the moon phase.

Time to put the Ganja seeds into some water & make a seed tray up tomorrow.

The library stock

(Achillea) (Urtica) (Borago) (Taraxacum)(Galium)(Helianthus)(Symphytum block 14) (Stellaria)(Levisticum)(Arctium) (Salix fragilis) (Aescophyllum) (Symplocarpus) (Lysichiton) (Equisetum)(Salvia)(Plantago)(Medicargo)(Verbascum)(Portulaca)(Cnicus) (Dioscorea )
 

Dr.Young

K+ vibes
Veteran
The plastic cover idea is good too....
eggplant_earthbox_marty_1.jpg

With the earthbox and bottom reservoir style boxes... They have the tube coming out that would help for exhausting extra heat, and keeping things cool/breathing... So top is covered up, and no water getting in from rain... but still not getting stale because of the exhaust\watering tube.
 

Mate Dave

Propagator
ICMag Donor
Veteran
These are the little bastards you don't want in there. I have a soil steriliser on the farm for killing these things in bulk but you can just pick em out..

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This is a wick planter Dr. I like the way earth boxes work. I used to make Soma Style or Growdoc beds. I wouldn't waste the money on an earth box or a plastic planter when I could use mounds or a bed outside. They seem more suitable for indoors or for pre veg while your away. You can put the shower cap on these too & they're cheaper & have better space utilisation.

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Microbeman

The Logical Gardener
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Sorry I'm a little confused. Are you growing no-till in those pots, in beds or in the ground?
 

Mate Dave

Propagator
ICMag Donor
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I'm growing in lots of things MicrobeMan. (Houses/bedrooms/Garages/Attics in tents or Mountain/Canyons & Orchards & Fields)

Thanks for stopping by I appreciate it. Thank you for inspiring us all to grow organic.

I will be asking your advice on my processes before I make any final decision of sparing expenses..

I have a hobby & feed myself from gardening. It's my job or what I do :)

I have been gifted this landslide so I made a 250 gallon raised bed that I filled last year, put a top dress of manure on it & grew Cole crops as a trial to see what the fertility or nutrient exchange was like.

My book says it can take 10 years to get the fertility from native soils. I won't be needing any of that as my bed is doing really well & I eat daily from it:)

I have some I mixed in pots so I can spread around my cover crops & trial the media.

I have some being used in cells for propagation so it's not to hot for seedlings.

I have some in sacks cooking waiting for my 100 gallon planters & if I think I need to test the mix's for pH & CEC I have recipes for a base to further amend...

I need to up the container size from 7 litres to get a properly sustainable nutrient cycling. These 7 ltd pots are for my cannabis clones.. I will try hard to phase out plastics but nearly all the soil ameliorates come in plastic not paper & I have 200 litre barrels for storage..

I know I won't phase it all out. I have fibreglass water deposits up the hill & irrigation pipe.. (Flumes seem a bit extreme)

I had some holes dug in the mountain @ 400M elevation up from the spot this landslide is @. I backfilled the holes with this mix over-sowed with clover & planted fava beans so far. I will put the lupines down when I go back & collect my honey & more manure. The irrigation is in & so is the fence. Bloody hard work betting the mix that far up.

That garden gets evening sun so we cannot do early starts in that spot..

I think this mix should do all the above with tweaking..

I have a 400+m growing area own the edge of the river that is Organic, it has never had any external inputs made. Stuff grows..

I know I have to consider my covercrops habit for the cultivation system used.

I can plant in the ground @ some spots.

I can grow above or in the ground depending on the density of the plantings the season & size of the strain & requirements of grow cycle.

I don't want to pay for planters so I will do it in the ground mostly.

I am trying to grow breed a world record yield plant for production & I figure a set planter size & a dedicated mix is the way to go to get some rules for the Guinness book of records

Bottom Garden

Top Garden
 

Microbeman

The Logical Gardener
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Good for you Dave. We were also fortunate to have land in the river's flood zone and each spring she provided new nutrients. In one of these areas we wintered our horses so over a period of years the level of soil built up with composted horse manure, hay residue, silt from the river. We scraped off about 5 - 8 inches [12 to 18 cms] with our tractor loader and used this as a base for our raised beds and indoor bins.
We had a creek that dumped into the river and it formed a delta from which we gathered drainage pebbles and black magnetic sand.
 

Mate Dave

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Veteran
Black Magnetic Sand :thinking:

I will see if Diggs can post me some off the beach :biggrin:

What benefits would they bring to my mix Microbeman?

I want to try to be as organic as possible & shipping stuff isn't a priority @ present. I need a sack of Kelp, Crab, Rice & Oystershell before I mess about anymore.

Sounds like a full system you had in place. I have a spot on a delta & one in the mountains.. The alluvial soils are deep in the valley & suited more to citrus than the highland areas that are best for grapes & olives & almonds. There is very if any topsoil where the farmers choose to plough & erode away what greenery there was on these huge clearances.

The garden on the river edge doesn't flood much, all the OM is all turned it with a digger dragged from another area the new tunnel is going on. It has had many sheds worth of manure & compost added & double dug for 10 + years. All the floods bring there is stone no sand.. I have some irrigation pipes in it for using water pressure to feed that garden with a basic filter before it hits the emitters. the head on that I will walk another 30m upstream in summer & get a better head on it. That needs checking for Toads most of the dry season, unfortunately they get in there & block it.. I have a sediment filter that builds up over time & the floods don't seen to make a mess of the irrigation much. The well can pump up to various Deposits to use gravity & the baby Ram pump feeds the middle garden & the big boy does the top garden.

I have to put some mini flumes into the landslide to prevent erosion & get the water to wash the OM into trees when it rains & culverts in the track with a trash filter to fill up a deposit for the new tunnel. I have had badgers cut the land to make use of rainwater.

Going to chop a few trees down soon, keep the bark as a soil enhancer decompose & use the wood chips & start a few new piles when we build the compost bay out the wood.

I plan to use these style raised beds for composting or breeding worms. I can then force cuttings in them & or grow out big plants

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Microbeman

The Logical Gardener
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Truthfully I do not know if magnetic sand contributes anything besides being sand. There are those who believe magnetic materials enhance growth. I just thought it was cool. We could harvest it with magnets. h.h may know more about this than I.

The creek had been a gold panners' destination in old times.
 

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