Barren to Fertile Soil: Using Cover Crops and Sheet Mulch
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ม.ค. 2018
- Here's how I brought very cheap but insanely effective fertility to my soil. Sheet mulches and cover crops are an incredible way to use nature to smother weeds, loosen soil, add tons of nutrients, remove contaminants, attract beneficial insects and other life, as well as condition the soil and microbiome. Without this cover crop I probably would have spent at least another $1,000 on initial soil to get my market garden going. It took about 6 months for the total process. But if you have the time this is far better for your soil in the long run than just bringing in a bunch of already made compost/nutrients.
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I heard of another guy that uses ducks to flatten but not break the cover crop so it feeds the soil and keeps the weeds from growing back. He just tosses peanuts in the field and they go for it and....nature takes care of itself!
Goin' back in time and watching this dude...love the music cuts :)
Thanks man this was a fun one!
Harsh tunz
There might be a lesson here. Will never know. The accompanying sounds are far from inclusive. Suppose the point was to limit the audience appeal.
@Epic Gardening I am a fan of your work! keep it up!
Part 2 journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_pain.html
Jean Pain has no diploma; but he is intelligent, highly adaptable and keenly observant. And starting in 1965, be devoured dozens of books on science while carrying out his first experiments. He began by fermenting the brushwood cuttings as he brought them in, but soon realized that fermentation would be more efficient if the bigger boughs were chopped up as finely as possible. No machine for this existed, so he invented one, building it in his garage with salvaged material. The potential significance of Pain's discovery is enormous. What it means, to Pain, is that forests can become twenty-first-century man's "guardian angels."
The stakes for France are obviously high. While the French import 126 million tons of oil annually, throwing their balance of payments seriously off the mark, French forests constitute an energy back-up with a potential that biologist Robert du Pontavice estimates as equivalent to 20 million tons of oil (TEP). Nor are these merely "theoretical" and unexploitable resources.
Pain has taken the costs of his method into account. He has gone over and over his calculations and the figures are there: 1,000 hectares of forest can supply 6,000 tons of fertilizer a year, 960,000 cubic metres of biogas (or 480,000 litres oil equivalent) and millions of litres of hot water. And exploiting the forest costs only 12 per cent of the energy extracted from it.
What's more, the cycle can be repeated indefinitely as brushwood is renewed every seven years. Thus, not only would the forest remain clean and free from the danger of fire, but would provide an inexhaustible supply of fertilizer and thermal energy.
Multiple Usages
Already in France and throughout the world, many uses are being made of the techniques Pain developed at the Dornaine des Templiers. In France, eight municipalities have chosen to adopt his techniques for recycling vegetation and supplying heat and hot water to public buildings, hot-houses and sports facilities.
"In Sainpuits (Yonne), a village of 500 inhabitants, we heat several buildings with the object of proving the value of the system," I was told by Etienne Bonvallet, project foreman of the pilot operation. In the Savoie, Chambery began to use Jean Pain's method in January 1980. A 200-cubic-metre compost bed, made of broken wood from plane trees and lime trees, will supply 23,400 kilocalories an hour and heat a 200 square-metre hot-house. Within two years, it will be possible to salvage 80 cubic metres of humus for the community gardens.
Says Henri Stehle, internationally respected agriculture expert and botanist and Institute of France prize-winner, "At the end of the path Pain has opened, stands tomorrow's self-sufficient agribusiness producing its own fertilizer and the power to run its equipment." Pain's methods are beginning to spread to the rest of Europe. In Brussels, Belgium, stands a compost plant and a flourishing garden. This is the experimental station of the International Jean Pain Committee, formed in 1978 by Frederik Vanden Brande, former Belgian secretary-general of the Council of European Townships, to publicize Pain's techniques.
Verdant Future
This station is the showcase of the Jean Pain committee, and its pride. But the committee has many other activities. It puts out brochures, gives lectures, and organizes twice yearly, two-week training programmes where 100-odd farmers, students, and environmental specialists from various parts of the world study grinding, composting, . and methane production procedures.
Both in France and abroad, Jean Pain's methods are destined to be applied over a wider field. Pain has devoted followers in Australia, the United States, Tunis, Latin America and Japan, The book he wrote with his wife, already translated into five languages, has sold 70,000 copies.
International energy expert Robert Giry, author of Is Nuclear Energy Useless?, predicts: "In our times of crisis, with European agriculture in danger of one day suddenly finding itself deprived of energy, the path opened by Jean Pain for the production of fertilizer, fuel and electricity could lead to a brimming future."
The simplest principles often underlie the most useful discoveries. Now, when soil exhaustion and the search for new energy sources are the leading brain-twisters in the developed societies, Jean Pain, the self-taught scientist with calloused hands, offers a commonsense solution: the green gold that's to be found almost everywhere in the world. It is here, under our feet; we have only to stoop down to gather it.
The way you got excited about card board tripped me out! I’ve had card board in my garage and basement that I’ve been trying to get rid of for over a year and it never occurred to me to USE IT! Lol!! I knew it was useful but now I know how. Awesome content! 💕🙏🏻👍
Yeah the cardboard was a good score. I would love to see how you terminated the cover crop. I think you are doing a great job. Thanks for sharing. Janice
This is GREAT! Exactly what I was looking for. Just moved to a completely barren yard in a new subdivision in Central Texas. I have massive amount of packing paper and cardboard which I’ve been using to start border gardens right now. I’m watering the soil, putting down several layers of packing paper which I then water and covering that with cardboard which I water. I’m trying to get out at night every other night when the temperatures go down to lift the cardboard and water the paper and then the cardboard itself. I’m go8ng to order hay next and put it in the cardboard and go back to the packing paper, cardboard, etc. We’ve cancelled our lawn company contract and I’ve asked my husband to not mow the backyard again. I was planning on just sowing a native wildflower mix everywhere and see what happens, maybe hand water the yard once a week (we’re in a stage three drought). I thought about adding daikon radish to the seed mix and now yarrow. I’ve always worried about clover taking over a yard, so I hadn’t planned on sowing it. After I use up all of my boxes I was going to have it top-dressed with soil from the landscape company and see what I’ve got to work with in the spring. There’s not a flower anywhere in sight here, but I plan on my yard being a pollinators paradise! I have on birdbath and one bird feeder I’ve put up and have been rewarded with increased bird activity, a few insects, and I saw a single wild bee sipping from the birdbath yesterday. I moved from a gorgeous yard in a forest in NY, so this is a hard transition.
just read this. hopefully you got hay from a native grass prairie. You don't want to be stuck with Johnson grass, etc.
Well done. This is what I call a "value-added" video. While I love garden and urban farm/food forest tours, it's really nice to see something different. This is different and very educational. I'm in FL and it's 73 here today, so it feels like it's almost time to plant my garden. Maybe this fall a cover crop makes a ton of sense. Thanks for taking a simple concept...growing clover and grasses, sheet mulching etc., and turning it into a learning experience. One more thing: the patience you exhibit as you had to be itching last fall to get your farm going. Instead, you looked at the longer term and decided this would be of great long term benefit, so you prepped in the fall and now your farm looks great. Nice job!
Jim
Wow, thanks a lot for the awesome compliments Jim. I'm trying to do something that's totally my style and different so I'm glad you found it really useful! The patience was totally worth it, long term vs short term thinking. Nature is always thinking long term.
fesgegg
That cardboard was a score for sure! So glad that you shared your process of how you got where you are. Nice video, thank you for sharing. Catherine
Totally! My pleasure!
Oh fantastic!! I love how you worked with nature! We are starting out gardenwise and after digging one 30 inch bed about 46 feet long in our clay soil, with gneiss rock everywhere I threw up my hands in surrender and decided to sheet mulch the dang thing. Found manure delivered for free (well, for gas and a 6 pack), leaves takes out of yards and deep litter from my highly destructive chickens as compost. We used buckwheat for a cover crop, but plan to incorporate more in the future following the main gardening season this year. Thanks for the tips about biodiversity, grasses actually being of use, and just going for it!
Awesome Natasha, sounds like you are well on your way to building some incredibly rich garden beds. You are so welcome glad it was helpful for you! Good luck with your garden!
You’re very hardworking! Excellent video. Thank you.🌷
Thanks Tess! Happy gardening!
You are doing the right thing, add organic matter, inoculate with compost and a riot of diversity.
The key to cover crops is the roots, they feed exodates to the soil life building the rhizosphere ready for your plants
Good work I look forward to the next
Great video. I'm definitely going to use your method when starting my garden. I will definitely be watching all of your videos in the future. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for the support Zagros! I love that you are going to do things naturally in your garden, stay tuned for a lot more gardening tips!
Awesome effort bro. Such a great watch, thank you so much for sharing this X
Great looking garden. I am doing this here but did not know much about it so thanks for all the info in the vidoes.
Thanks for the very informative video! Your garden looks great. I loved seeing the ladybugs and others all over your cover crop!! :)
Thanks so much, I love seeing the ladies too! It's always a good sign when they are there because they choose to be.
I'm new here and I've looking for this specific kind of tutorial! your really good at what u do and your cinematography is triple A plus ;)
Love your channel, thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience!
Thanks I'm glad you are liking it :) happy to share.
Thanks for sharing all your information thanks
You are very welcome :) glad it is beneficial.
Full process wad very helpful. Thanks
Awesome! Your video got me wondering about cover crops in a raised bed as well which apparently is a thing. You sound like a busy guy and I'm glad educating us by showing what's working for you is one of your gigs 😁
Yes you can definitely do a cover crop in a raised bed! My friend Kevin @Epicgardening made a video on it, th-cam.com/video/GvxLPd3qi_Q/w-d-xo.html. In fact if you live in an area where it snows and you can't grow veggies during the winter, it's a great idea to over-winter a cover crop. Which means you plant at the end of summer and let the plant live until it just dies in winter. The plants and their roots dies and decompose added lots of nutrients and organic matter :) Yes I'm so happy to do it! It's really fun making videos and I love being able to expose people to this amazing world of regenerative farming.
Nature's Always Right thanks for the video suggestion. Very interesting and I hope Kevin has an update soon. No snow (or an inch or two every few years) here and I suspect our areas are very similar climate wise. I'll hopefully remember to try it out at the end of this growing season.
I'm in zone 10a if that helps. Yes Kevin will be posting at least one of our new videos we made together hopefully next week :)
Love cover crops! Thanks for sharing.
Litterally subbed in the first 5 seconds of this video. Love that post malone song . i bumped it all last year when i started gardening
Fantastic work prepping your soil!
Very nice video, great coordination of sound and video. Thank you for posting.
Thanks, it was fun making it!
I like your way of explaining a lot, I am from Germany and will start something similiar this year. I follow all your new videos and hope you will add a plenty more :) good luck!
Wow thank you that great to hear. I hope I can get better and better at explaining and make the videos entertaining for you guys too. Very happy to hear you will be starting your own small farm. Send me a message on social media when you start I'd be happy to follow you and see your progress!
great video. great explanation.
Great info!!! Hard worker. I love your channel save the music. Besides that you’ve been so helpful. Thanks for your passion!!
Dude ! Great documentation! Thank you very much!
You're welcome man! Thanks for the feedback.
Hey! I enjoyed this video! 😍 Last year I experimented with cover crops, but loved them so much, I couldn't till them in. I'm really trying to practice no till gardening with permaculture principals, so now clover, rye, alfalfa and buckwheat are allowed to pop up wherever they want. 🥰🌾
Looks awesome
Your channel along with sensei Cutis Stone, Neversink, and others are an amazing resource! Thank you for sharing your knowledge and best wishes on your continuing success
Thanks a lot for saying that Ian, to even be compared to those guys is an honor. I'm so happy the info I'm sharing has been valuable to you!
You make great videos. They are on par with Curtis Stone which is how I found you. I love this one in particular. I am doing this exact same thing in my backyard and seeing you do it really helps me it's amazing how the cardboard disappears. Keep up the good work.
great video thanks so much
It would be awesome to see a sheet mulch cardboard manufacturer, maybe made from hemp.
I love the idea of using the cover crop.
That was awesome! Sharing!
Love your method. I’m going to do it!
Nice job... That was a ton of work. Wish I had someone hear to work with me like that!
Oh ya tons of work and continues to be! I'm still getting tons of rocks out of some of my beds. Hehe I wish I had more help over here too :)
Thanks for a very inspiring video 👍
You're welcome. Glad you enjoyed it :)
I worked on a small scale farm for a summer. I wish i still did it. So what im planning is doing it on my land for profit. Like you are! You have a great growing season in CA. Im in NC and we have a short season, but we can get a lot grown in a short time. This looks likes a lot of work. But your preparing new soils on a older site. Good luck this year with profits!
Awesome Dillon, I'm excited to hear that! Best of luck to you in your farming endeavors! Build good soil and success will come :)
You're a genius my friend! Thank you so much for being a teacher. I'm currently moving from Canada to Sicily Italy and I have a bit of land there. Obviously I'm going to be starting up a garden, and I've been looking for someone to show me the ropes... Looks like I've found my guy! I can't wait to keep watching your vids and checking out some of the books and resources you recommend. Thanks.
I'm just standing on the shoulders of giants, but thank you for your compliment that means the world to me. Nice that sounds amazing. Growing in Sicily will be incredible. Best of luck with your new land :)
Thanks! I'll let you know how it goes once I get over there, but I'm preparing and coming up with a game plan now. And don't be TOO modest, it takes a lot of work to sort through all the information that you are now putting into action. It is so well thought out and practical. It's really a great model for a manageable self-sustainable garden!
Please do. Thanks a lot it makes me really happy to know my work is valued.
Great information in your videos man keep it up!
Thanks John, glad you are liking them!
Super bad ass cardboard find!!! That makes it so easy. Great vid
Ya it was the best! My buddy found more for me from a garage door company, another good type of company to contact ;)
wow, i've got good timing! i just found your channel earlier today and was wondering what happened to you. Great video! thanks for sharing!
Yes you do! I'm still alive and making videos haha. Thanks for watching my new video Dustin. Will be releasing a new video weekly.
Dustin Hill I thought I had lost him as well
Haha not going anywhere guys. I'm just a slow starter ;)
Love this!
Nice work!
Great video. Love the music!
You said you didn't know what was in your soil. Have you not had it tested? I love your ideas but I'm trying to learn and I figured that would be a baseline. I just had mine tested and I'm still analyzing the results. Lol. I'm not able to have a typical garden. Most of what I grow is in a container. Your principles and ideas are really interesting and makes me want to make a permanent cover crop. In other words, a wildflower garden. Lol. Thanks for documenting so well. I love how you stumbled upon that huge cardboard resource! How perfect! Loved the music and I'm 63. Your results are beautiful too. I'm formulating ideas in my mind now based on what you taught. Am a sub now. Will be tuning in again.
Good job! Keep it up!
Thanks, I'll never stop!
SCORE👍👍. I ♥️♥️♥️ cardboard!!! My friend has a framing shop & I gladly take all her cardboard. Really like how you did the layering 👍
Great job 👍🏻
Tremendous!! Thank you!!
Great work!!! Hello from Tijuana.
Thanks! Hello neighbor :)
Loving the dub at the start of the video!!
Nice glad you like the music!
Brilliant video subscribed keep it up
Thanks so much for the support my friend!
Dude! I am in New Mexico with 2.5 acres of land I want to work on! I started following you and started from your first video! Thanks for all the info! I am currently making my own compost! Hope to gain a bunch of knowledge from you. If you are ever in New Mexico let me know!
The music is lit.. great video
Thanks Adrienne glad you enjoyed it! I love that remix too!
Brilliant
Dude! I love your videos! Thank you so much for sharing all of this info!
In the end of your video you were talking about how you need to keep working on this soil conditioning until you have several feed of top soil.
Have you made a video for that yet?
I'm wondering how you do that if you're always growing vegetables there.
Thanks again!
You are very welcome. The process takes years to make a foot worth of loamy amazing soil. No-till, compost, and aerated teas are how I'm achieving that. I'm about a year in of non stop planting and conditioning and it's so much better than it was. It's been incredible to watch. I'll have to show what my soil is looking like now.
Awesome video, I found it on ecosnipets, One hint all lupine seeds need to be scarified, and soaked in warm water, I learned that from a Nat. Park Gardener.
Oh nice :) Thanks for the tip! I'll try that out, I have been getting my lupine to sprout the the germination rates haven't been amazing.
When I get my own house, I'm going to replace the grass with clover and beans. Screw the perfectly cut grass, I want a yard that really is alive.
native wildflower groundcovers are great too.
Gave Brown recommends up to 12 varieties
Hope you don't move into a housing development managed by "grass & lawn Nazis " like we have here in Florida. They will tear your dream to shreds.
Excellent video!! The results we're obviously amazing!! Question, if you could go back in time, is there anything you'd do differently to start that garden? Apologies if you've already answered or made a video on the topic. Cheers from Victoria BC
I’ve tried many species and favor a blend of Austrian peas, buckwheat and rye sown as a blend. That grows for 60 days then I flail mow it with my BCS. If winter is coming, that’s left to naturally decompose. If we’re at mid-summer then I till it in and plant a second round. This is incredibly transformative.
Thanks for the variety recommendations and tips Kris. That's really helpful. This was my first time doing a cover crop so I really want to do a much better job next time. I like your technique of flail mowing I wish I had a BCS! One day when I have a larger farm I'm definitely getting one.
If you have a lawn mower, you basically have a good flail mower. I make my own compost by taking Organic straw and sprinkling it over grass with pine bedding (preferably very fine like saw dust). The grass grows into the straw, etcetera, then when the grass is around four inches and poking through, I cut it and catch it with a bag mower. Pile this up and inoculate it with a product that you can buy on Amazon called “RECHARGE”. It has an amazing cocktail of both digestive fungi and bacteria which will chew up that plant matter in about 40 days. It also has “predatory” bacteria like Bacillus subtillus which kill pathogenic bacteria and fungi. All good; nothing bad. BTW, the reason for the straw and pine bedding is to follow the rule “Mix green with brown!”. In other words, fresh plant material which has energy with lignified material which supplies Carbon which acts as a “diaper” to hold all the sundry elements. For brown material, don’t forget coffee grounds which are available for free wherever there is a Starbucks. All you have to do is supply them with buckets with lids and be faithful about collecting them. The grounds are slightly acidic, but I always add pelleted dolomitic limestone to my compost piles, so that’s a moot point. Azomite rock powder is another good adjutant.
Love you videos and music choice lol
Thanks! Choosing music is one of my favorite parts :)
Wonderful information. I like the details. That sure was good cardboard - long strips and little tape. I use lots to transform my grass lawn into gardens - a section each year - but sometimes the cardboard is hard to come by. When did you add the wheat, mistake or not? I've used hairy vetch as a cover crop with great results and am experimenting with mustard greens. Also, I fill in spaces in the summer with buckwheat. It flowers quickly and the insects love it. Borage and yarrow are in my pollinator section. Clover grows wild in my lawn. The disadvantage is that my bare feet get stung by yellow jackets when I walk across it. You are very busy so I appreciate all the info you give. Looking forward to more.
Yes! That cardboard was a real miracle find haha. I was just driving down the road I do everyday and was like hey!! Omg that's a lot of cardboard! Gotta love those fun discoveries! So I didn't talk about the wheat as well as I should have. I got "Straw" from a guy selling them cheap, $7/bale but they werent' totally straw lol is what hay. Hay has the seeds in it. So when I spread out the straw mulch to help cover the seeds and to hold moisture the wheat seeds were also broadcast. Yes vetch is a great nitrogen fixer, buckwheat is great too. I think the more mix of different types of plants in the cover crop really helps to maximize the soil conditioning effect. Nice! Borage and yarrow are some of my absolute favorites and they accumulate nutrients in the soil so win win! Thanks for the support! New video or 2 next week for sure!
Thanks for the video! I have a field of highly compacted clay soil, the huge weeds cut off, but thick stems sticking out. I would like to know how you got rid of weeds (the big ones) before putting down cardboard, etc to plant the cover crop. Cause to me it looks like I'll have to till lightly to be able to pull out those thick stems.
Great video. Good Info. One thought from an old man. Work the fartherest spots from your source materials first. Then closer and closer to your source. You are still young and healthy put there will come a time. If you do the areas fartherest away you have less and less distance to cover as you tire. It's just good work habits to develop now.
Thanks very much Casey. Yes I definitely took what permaculture design calls, "Zones" and scale of permanence into mind when planning out the layout of my entire property. That is great advice. I'm 30 so I'm definitely into working smarter and not harder nowadays haha.
Terrific cover crops.
A word of warning, though: you are destroying whatever benefits of the cover crop by removing the crop and tilling. Tilling destroys the mycelium/bacterial web that creates the tilth of your soil.
Consider flattening the CC onto your field and planting through the terminated crop. It acts as a mulch and will compost in place.
Ray Archuleta is a soil scientist, you may be interested in his research. Lots on YT.
Great work. Best success to you.
Flyover Pilgrim Is it possible to direct sow between the cover crop?
Yes , I was chocked when he said it.
@@_j_a_d_e yes
Yes. Tillage is one of the most destructive activities that man does to soil. It oxidizes soil carbon sending it to the atmosphere as CO2, and the nitrogen as nitrous oxide. Beneficial bacteria and fungi, earworms etc are killed. Soil loses its armor causing moisture loss, higher soil temps in the summer, colder soil temps in winter.
You can terminate the cover crop with grazing animals, goats, sheep, chickens, ducks turkey or rabbits in tractors (moveable pens). You can stop taking 2 steps forward and 3 steps backward. Yes, check out videos with Ray Archuleta and Gabe Brown.
Hey has anyone ever tried chopping down their cover crop and just sheet mulching over the top of it? How did it go? I feel like the tricky part is trying to figure out when the right time is to cut down the cover crop, especially when you have used a very diverse mix. I thought I might treat the cover crop like I would treat a lawn that I want to grow over.
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Curious how you like your drip setup. Here in California it seems to be the only responsible way to water, but the lines sure are annoying. Am considering overhead watering with just a really heavy mulch instead.
This is super informative. I live in central Alaska and have a very hard time bringing my compost to temperature. I believe that I'm getting the ratio right and the moisture, but it still never reaches above 80°. Any recommendations? I would love to use it on my garden. P.s. It's partially from chicken waste
Great idea.
We'd like to try you're technique. Do you think it would fail because our termites love cardboard to bits?!
Shared from Toon and Leigh
I am so happy just like i got all that cardboard :)))
can you dig down to see the difference in soil?
where can you get straw. I have the most difficult time getting material here in Florida. Thanks, great work all around......
Love this with the sheet mulch. I have done this on a small scale but quickly had a change of heart when I picked up the cardboard and found a small snake-yikes. no it is all good. I did want to ask you how you suppressed the clover once you started your crops. Here is NC, it can become quite a weed. Ideas?
I didn't let my cover crop go to seed, once I see flowers I take them out. Now that I'm growing for production I kill all weeds when they are babies very easily with a collinear or scuffle hoe.
Hi, thanks for this video! What did you do with the ground once you cut the cover crop down? It looks like it was able to dry over time. I just tried this method when I heard you talk about it on the Epic Gardening channel.
Looks great. However, I've always questionex the use of cardboard as an organic method with all the glue. Is the a better alternative?
Great! Love it. What is the size of your farm in square meter?
Hey there, fantastic video channel, thank you so much for the valuable insights ! One question popped in my mind when I saw the vast amount of cardboard you've been using ; did you check before if they were safe and not treated with pesticide ? I heard they're sometimes treated against pest and that could be an issue when they decompose. Thanks again man, what you do is the future. Jean from France
Thanks Jean! I've never heard of cardboard being treated with pesticides. I only use cardboard with no tape or glue, no writing at all. Maybe you mean straw? For straw it's definitely possible as grains are sprayed, sourcing organic or non-sprayed is the best. Unfortunately these chemicals are so prevalent now they are almost unavoidable altogether. Glyphosate is in the ground water and even when it rains. That's why it's important to have really healthy soil biology because they will isolate and eliminate toxins over time.
So if my yard is already covered in this its good to go?
Nice video your garden is looking great. I have a space a little smaller than your and I’m looking to do something similar to your garden and take my veggies to my local market. My question is if you had access to very good cheap soil ($25 a ton) would you have still covered cropped? I’m thinking about just tilling the existing grass/weeds, adding in organic manure from a neighbor, the soil/compost and going from there. Ive used this soil in 4 raised beds I made the past year and had pretty good success. This was my first year gardening and I’m looking to expand my growing area. If I cover crops I’ll have to wait until the fall to start growing bc I live in FL. Can’t grow to much here in the dead heat of summer. Any advice would help. Thank you.
If you want to build the beds immediately and start farming then just buy the soil. Idk how you are getting $25/ton that is essentially free lol. If it is actual composted organic matter/manure then wow that's amazing. My goal was to achieve fertility on my land without importing a bunch of soil. I could have just bought soil, but I wanted to prove that fertility could be achieved naturally, very cheaply, but as effectively as bringing in soil. And prove that I could make most of my own soil for my farm from the beginning. I've been successful in that goal so far and it looks like I'll be able to sustain it from here on out! I'm making about 2 cu/yds of compost every 3 months, in addition to the other fertility systems I have like vermicompost.
Boa noite Steven, bem organizada a sua horta, você é autodidata ou é formado em alguma universidade rural americana ?, fica na paz de Deus Yahweh e nosso Senhor Jesus Cristo, você é uma pessoa muito sábia no que faz, eu nunca vi ninguém plantar desse jeito com tanto carinho e foco no que sabe e no que faz, meus parabéns Steven.., valeu um forte abraço Brasileiro..
I am self-taught I never wen to any university for farming. I studied Information Systems. But I have had a lot of different agriculture teachers and mentors over the years. Learn from other's experience, academia is mostly pointless and they are subsidized by the government and corporations. They will try to brainwash you to what the status quo is rather than what is right. I don't recommend going to university actually, unless the degree will truly further your career like if you want to be a doctor/lawyer/engineer,scientist ect.
Did you do your cover crop in the spring? How long did you let it grow and how did you terminate it? I just got a nice sized plot at work and want to set things up right for next year. I am in MD zone 7. Thanks!
Thanks so much for the helpful video! Been looking for a video with someone planting cover crop on cardboard. Yo that cardboard is awesome!!!! Where did you get your cardboard? Im in SD too and I'm looking for a good source for cardboard. Also where did you get your compost soil?
Enjoyed watching you rebuilding your yard and creating soil using Cover crop to create a bio-mass for the soil biology. Lasagna layering the yard with the cardboard and straw was a nice touch. Have you though about using Bio-char when layering?
Thanks! That would have been fantastic. I would totally do that now, I wasn't making it before. I keep adding in more components of inoculants and soil biology boosters to my methods. Korean natural farming is my latest thing I'm studying. I'll be talking about both and how to do them on the channel eventually :)
@@NaturesAlwaysRight look up Dave Brown regenerative agriculture and listen to a few of his lectures or Ray Archuleta
Oh ya I'm a big fan of those guys :)
1:46 BORRAGE YESSSSSSSS! I completely forgot about this amazing plant
2:05 s it true clover only starts introducing nitrogen as it flowers? Can anyone correlate or deny that?
Ya I love borage too! I believe the bacteria on the roots of clover fix nitrogen the whole time, but at the end of the life when it's flowering and has the biggest root structure they are fixing the most nitrogen.
Honest question: Why would you not do cover crops then sheet mulch over those crops?
Subscribed.
Will this work if you just want to plant grass?
How do you get rid of the cover crop? I know I saw this in one of your videos and I thought it was this one!
How do you seed your plot? Broadcaster? Could you link it? Thank you.
Just found you channel, also good timing as I am researching the steps I need to take to winter ready a new garden plot for next spring. Do you utilize wood chips? Ehh or why not?? Thank you for any suggestions and your thoughts.
I love woodchips I use them on all open ground, large pathways, and under fruiting trees and vines. My pathways are too small to put them in between my rows but if I had large pathways between beds I would put the woodchips there too.
Question...I'm eager to apply this sheet mulching to an area in my garden... but wondering if you could explain why you tilled in the cover crop? Didn't that bring weed seeds up already in your weed bank under the surface? Am I missing something? If it did, how did you deal with those weeds before forming your beds? Also, if tilling brought up weed seeds, was your purpose in doing this just to add fertility?--Why then wouldn't you just eliminate the time and money expense of sheet mulching and potting soil and just till and plant in the native soil you already had? Thank you so much for your time and effort in making some excellent content!
I will be showing how I tilled and created the beds in a future video :) But basically I needed to use a tiller to form my beds and chop up the remaining plants from the cover crop. You are correct that by tilling I did whip up the seed bank. I did stale seed bedding for about a month in summer, hoping it would wipe out the weed seeds. It worked well but it didn't fully rid all seeds. After a year my weed pressure isn't bad at all. Hoping to have most of it all gone by next year. The purpose of the sheet mulch and cover crop was to kill the grass more than weeds, and of course to add fertility. Starting in that first ground would have been a disaster for me, crops would have been horrible and attacked by pests because they are so weak without nutrients. My expense was very low to do the cover crop and sheet mulch. I spent like $200 total, and got $1,000s in fertility out of it in my opinion. You're very welcome I'm glad you are enjoying it!
I think I get the purpose of the cardboard: keeps the weeds from reaching sunlight for a while, lets the beneficial plants take over. Does the straw serve the same purpose, and if so, why do both?
Or is the straw just a cheaper way to add organic matter and minerals, than organic fertilizers and/or more compost?
Yes you are correct about the cardboard. The straw has that affect slightly but mainly for adding organic matter to the soil because I had heavy clay soil. I do both to get the benefits of both. Straw will just add organic matter and carbon after breaking down it doesn't have much in the way of nutrients. The cover crop is what brought in and converted a ton of nutrients in the soil.
Literally how did you get rid of your cover crop?
Wouldn’t the weeds pop up after cutting down the cover crop and sheet mulch decomposing?
I Probably missed it but where did you get the cardboard
I got it from a glass company down the street. They ship large panes of glass and a lot of wood and cardboard is used to keep the glass safe. If you can find a more industrial area with small manufacturing, tile and brick sellers, glass sellers, pottery sellers. All of these kinds of business ship large items and you can collect a TON of their left over materials. Try calling around to some local business like these and ask what they throw away ;) OH and you can recycle all of your amazon boxes, toilet/paper towel rolls, ect.. too for more free carbon material.
Hi, love those long sheets of cardboard, can you please share with us what kind of business this was that gets those carboards. TIA
You didn't say how you ended the cover crop. Did you crimp it and leave a crop residue (Gabe Brown style), then drill your cash crop seed in? or did you till it in (conventional)? Are you planning a cover crop every year? Yes, the cardboard find was a major boost.
Hi Joan, what you describe will actually be my next big video, should come out early this week. I'll show you what I did with the cover crop :) but I mowed it down with a tractor, let it decompose, and stale seed bed, then I tilled to incorporate the matter and make my beds at the same time. No tilling will ever occur again. I don't plan on doing another large scale cover crop. But on individual beds it is possible I may choose to do that. Yes that cardboard was so helpful :)