"Decomposing wood, bark, leaves, etc, everywhere."
I bet, just an educated guess really, that by the time that material makes it into the soil it's in super small pieces of poo. If not poo, at least that material gets weathered down to a size small enough to get naturally tilled into the first few inches of the actual soil... perhaps by litter eating bugs and maybe some heavy worm action that's great for aeration. But, 1/2" chunky perlite sized bark, wood, or leaf pieces evenly distributed throughout the entire soil?
When I think of stuff decaying in the forest things like fungus, moss, lichen and ferns generally come to mind as what I see growing directly in decomposing trees.
Don't get me wrong, I have perlite, lava rock, pool filter sand, calcined clay, leaf litter etc... all in my raised beds... I'm not starting the anti-aeration amendment revolution. And I'm not going back into those beds and getting that stuff out of there... but, I am starting to re-think it's purpose/value. Along with what and which ones are actually necessary or not. Because, when I make a container with soil that has had all of the aeration screened out... after sitting in the pots for a while, I can't tell a difference.
I would think plastic pots make great aeration amendments as well... If you can find a chipper/shredder, all you have to do is run as many black nursery pots as you can find through that some bitch, and boom! lightweight aeration that won't decompose.
I bet, just an educated guess really, that by the time that material makes it into the soil it's in super small pieces of poo. If not poo, at least that material gets weathered down to a size small enough to get naturally tilled into the first few inches of the actual soil... perhaps by litter eating bugs and maybe some heavy worm action that's great for aeration. But, 1/2" chunky perlite sized bark, wood, or leaf pieces evenly distributed throughout the entire soil?
When I think of stuff decaying in the forest things like fungus, moss, lichen and ferns generally come to mind as what I see growing directly in decomposing trees.
Don't get me wrong, I have perlite, lava rock, pool filter sand, calcined clay, leaf litter etc... all in my raised beds... I'm not starting the anti-aeration amendment revolution. And I'm not going back into those beds and getting that stuff out of there... but, I am starting to re-think it's purpose/value. Along with what and which ones are actually necessary or not. Because, when I make a container with soil that has had all of the aeration screened out... after sitting in the pots for a while, I can't tell a difference.
I would think plastic pots make great aeration amendments as well... If you can find a chipper/shredder, all you have to do is run as many black nursery pots as you can find through that some bitch, and boom! lightweight aeration that won't decompose.
