Anybody got a good one tried and true?

Got a bunch of bulbs coming for the Mrs.

We mix in seaweed with our past seasons soil, plant the bulbs, cover with seaweed and let it ride.

Currently exploring biochar and mixing it with chicken litter and some other stuff. Had been burning the tree limbs and trimmings.

What are you doing with the limbs and trimmings after burning them?

Well it was stacked into a brush pile, so becomes a pile of ash on the ground. At center of 10 foot or so burn circle, nothing grows.Weeds around the perimeter do pretty well.

To make biochar, take same tree branches and limbs, cut into 1 foot sections, then start small fire in bottom of 55 gallon drum. As sticks, etc burn, once white smoke clears up and white ash starts forming, add more wood. Keep doing that until barrel is full. Flame is kept on top of pile, burning combustible gases off the wood. When barrel is full, cap it with the drum lid, cut air to bottom to snuff it. Give it a day or so to calm down, cool down. What comes out is fine pieces of charcoal that when activated is supposed to do some magic stuff in a garden.

In meantime, have been dumping the residual charcoal from my meat smoker onto the compost pile in the garden. Ash and charcoal both. Probably should save that and the tallow and make some lye soap.

My twin brother (pintail_drake2004) and I make our own potting mix. This is the way dad taught us years ago and if works, why fix it! A bale of peat moss, a bag of perlite and homemade compost is all that's in it! Below is a video of of the ratios a d methods for getting a real Fluffy potting mix!

https://youtu.be/tofTj4l_cP8?si=kmnUJIAAjxRhO9WV

Appreciate it Mallard____.

Subscribed.

I've been making lots of different mixes. My favorite mix is about half rabbit manure, 1/4 peat moss and quarter bagged mix containing manure and a lot of sand (which I paid 40 cents per 40 pound bag for).

I am in the process of starting a new nursery business with a friend of mine, where we will need a lot of soil and a new you pick business on my own, which will need soil and mulch for ground cover. I've had around 20 loads of arborist wood chips dumped here, with more to be dumped. The chips should make great soil, after decomposing, especially when I mix in poultry manure to add the needed nitrogen to the composting process.

Keith

Thanks for posting this bub. We have used this mixture for decades and have had great luck. I raise rabbits as well, so I am always mixing in extra bunny berries to enrich the mix. I use this same mix for my raised beds, grow tubs, garden rows, even planted trees in it. It is a whole lot cheaper than the green and yellow bag from the box store.

Keith..I read of a place that chips wood and has huge amounts of it, he has a big bunch of chickens that peck and scratch...and poop in those chips all day, doesn't feed them a thing and sells the eggs as a sideline, when the chickens get done with the chips he has great compost.

Back when I lived in town, I rented a small two story barn, part of a large barn and some ground from a friend, Mark. Mark had several loads of wood chips dumped together in a big pile. He grew out 34 Rhode Island Red chickens and 2 roosters, within slightly less than a month of being let out, the 36 birds completely leveled the huge pile, by digging through it and kicking it around, over a large area.

I've thought about doing that here.

When I was a kid, the neighbors 3 doors down, to our left, covered their heavily wooded backyard with wood chips. In hot, dry weather it was where we got our red worms and night crawlers. On the condition that we put it back flat, our neighbor let us brush aside the mulch and catch worms.

Keith

There's videos about using wood chips as ground cover for the garden , to keep it weed free.
Just scrape back the chips where you want to plant, and push back once the plants are high enough.
I use composted horse manure, that was in a sawdust bedding barn.
The PH is always about 6.5 , almost perfect for a garden.
I fill concrete block beds 3 foot wide and as long as I have room.
Cover with a cloth ground cover, or plastic from the Amish with drip irrigation .
Found a woven plastic with one side that has felt on it, tried it this year, and so far sold on using it on the whole raised bed garden.
It lasts longer and can be reused in a different bed of the same size, to rotate the crops.
It doesn't fray like the just woven plastic does.

Using wood chips to deeply blanket the garden is a large part of the Back to Eden gardening method.

Keith

Yep you seen it too.

Get a free soil test from your county extension service. Then, and only then, will you know what amendments your soil needs.

In my garden, I rarely need to add anything except Nitrogen. All other nutrients and my pH are normally fine. I use a small amount of lime about every three years, as noted in my soil analysis.

Had to adjust it a bit for the dirt I’m using but I think it will work. Gotta make a sifter to get the lumps out but I’m in the ballpark.