organic matter ???

From what I have heard on youtube, a good garden is basically growing on top of a worm bed.

My avocado pits were whacked with the hammer side of an ax.

I should make sure over the winder to occasionally water my worm (singular) and my microbiome.

I had a little frog for a time last year!

Thank you for the tips!

T wrote: ...

if you look into the biology of worms you find out that they are little bacteria factories. what they ingest and grind up together is food for the bacteria they have in their stomach and they feed off what the bacteria give them and any other nutrients they can pull out.

the biology of a good garden soil is more bacterial than fungal, but there are plenty of simple fungi in garden soil too. if you compare that to woodland soils or soils under perennial beds you will find that those are dominated by fungi more than bacteria.

microbiology of soils is a good winter topic too and also fits in nicely with studying composting. :)

that'll do it! they turn a pretty interesting color of orange if you cut them and leave them to oxidize in the air for a few minutes.

if it is really dry out, yeah, it won't hurt. just make sure not to waterlog your garlic or bunching onions.

that's fantastic! :) do you know what species it was?

:) always welcome, i love gardening and encouraging wildlife (the non-pest kinds) and try to always increase diversity.

i was just youtubing a video of a food forest with over 500 edible plants/trees/etc. any place in the world you can do that, even a desert. takes time and effort, but once you get going it keeps building on itself. like you are finding out.

imagine you are these folks and look where they started 10yrs ago:

give 'em ten more years and keep adding whatever will grow there and they'll be even further along.

love it. :) have fun. time to get outside to get my mess cleaned up and improved. some seeds to pick.

songbird

No clue. He did not come back this year.

Had a praying Mantis this year!

aww. well keep at it. every bit of shade, cover and moisture you can provide gives them more places to be. :)

we've had some toads here for the first time in several years and i was so hoppy to see them when they were so tiny and then i would see them around later as they kept growing.

i've seen a few different species of frogs here this summer, including one i don't recall seeing before and then i forgot to look it up while the image was fresh in my mind so not sure i could find it now if i looked. perhaps. a good project for a few minutes. :) thanks for reminding me.

those are always so interesting, like aliens, can you imagine what they would be like if they could live longer than just a season and keep reproducing!?

i used to keep them in a terrarium with the venus flytraps for a while to observe and feed them and then i would let them go. usually they were the green ones. here at this place we have both the green and brown varieties.

songbird

My guess is that the microbiome is everything. Without the worms and organic matter for the proper culture, you get poor yields.

No wonder hydroponic produce tastes like cardboard.

They still did not decompose! They worked their way up and out of the ground and rolled abound (yes, even the flat ones). Took me forever to figure out what they were.

I have dug up vegi table scraps TWO year old that did to decompose.

Does Peat Moss qualify as "organic matter"?

The plan is to water every three weeks after a rain event. Otherwise let the rain do its thing.

Forgot which treat you made the comment of raised beds. I agree with out. They would dry out and blossom rot would be the least of my issues. The only benefit I see if that they are easier on your back.

did not

which thread

with you

Gee Wiz. I am batting 1000 today! :'(

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yes, make sure it is sourced from a sustainable producer. i don't use it here much any more though because if you take bagged leaves and other stuff and bury it for a few years it will end up looking like peat moss. i just dug up a stash from several years ago and if i'd have lit a match it would have probably blew up since there was so much methane coming out of it. but then i have clay and moisture to seal things in down deep enough.

i was rather surprised by that. looked exactly like peat moss. it is now all stirred in with the garden soil in that garden and looks pretty good.

the problem with peat moss is that when it gets dry it can take more than a simple quick watering to get it rehydrated. mixed in with garden soil that is kept moist it is an excellent material, but it is not a heavy fertilizer, like most composted materials the benefit is from the improvement to the soil structure and the habitat it provides for the bacteria/fungi/etc as it gradually decomposes.

i think in a pretty active garden soil it breaks down further within a few years but if you keep adding organic material as you garden each season that isn't too much of an issue.

songbird

T wrote: ...

no idea how dry it might get there in the winter but around here it rarely is dry for long, freeze drying in the winter can happen along with frost heave for some plants if they are planted too late.

yeah, if i'm working down low for long i just sit on a ground pillow, otherwise a few deep knee bends are good for my legs.

i always daydream of how to set up a system that would allow a relatively disabled person still be able to garden. sometimes i think of it as a bunch of square containers that a small train/track system could move around. if you need to weed you just hit the buttons and the containers are brought you where you are. same for harvest. watering could be done from overhead or at a watering station, etc. just something to think about ... haha... i also think about for fun a bean shelling, drying and sorting model railroad. :) not that i'll ever do it because i have too much fun doing it by hand, but just another idle thing to ponder.

songbird

I use a nice set of knee pads.

That train track thing sounds interesting!