Darrell's (dw1305's) soil thread

[rebel]

You can use my name.

Thanks.

Not anymore friend. Not anymore.

 

[rebel]

Tell us more my man! I live in high clay country. I can almost have a pond without a liner. 😎 Haven't bothered with baking clay in my oven I need to find someone with a pizza oven. They can get up to 800C.

 

[zozo]

Tell us more my man! I live in high clay country. I can almost have a pond without a liner. 😎 Haven't bothered with baking clay in my oven I need to find someone with a pizza oven. They can get up to 800C.

You can make one yourself from the clay you dig up... 🙂 And it's actually easypeasy. 😀

Short nutshell tut.

Gather wine bottles, make a stand, from whatever material. Create a round platform, put a small wall 2 or 3 bricks high around it. Lay the empty glass (Wine) bottles (cap removed) in the round space you created in between the brick wall as much as you can. Then fill and cover with sand, perlite or terracota clay balls to make a flat bottom. Cover the sand again with a fire-resistant brick, that's the oven floor. The bottles below it, create insulation, there is no better and cheaper insulation than still standing air.

Now the platform (oven floor) is ready, then create an oven door (entrance) create an arch with fire-resistant brick and cement. Make sure its big enough for you to get in laying n your back. When this is done close it with some wood, then take wet sand and create a half a globe on top like a sandcastle.

Make sure to make the globe 10 inches smaller all around the floor. Cover the globe sandcastle with wet newspaper.

Now its time to dig up clay or loam, make it wet enough so you can mould consistent 8 inches loam balls. And start stacking these loam balls tight against the sand globe like building an Eskimo Iglo. Once reaching the top, use a terracotta pot or tube above the door as a chimney. Then start plastering the globe with wet loam mixed with hay as extra insulation and strength, 2 inches thick.

Leave it all to dry for a few days, then dig out the sand and you have a loam Eskimo Iglo... Then fire it up and slowly raise the temperature to the max. You will bake the oven from the inside out. After it baked for a day, it will be hardened enough to use as an oven. Only thing, if it ever rains in your region cover it with a roof.

Now you have a Loam oven, for pizza, bread, whatever you like to bake.. For a minimum of cost and a few days elbow grease. It's an ancient proven concept used since far before the middle ages.

You can even paint it if you want to go fancy on it. 🙂

Make sure you regularly inspect the inside for cracks, if you see any, dig up some loam and repair it.

Here is a dutch foto album of such a build, the pictures speak for them selfs, with the above.
https://www.natuurstoffen.nl/artikelen/fotoverslag-pizza-oven-bouwen/

 

[rebel]

Yes DIY aquasoil is much harder than it looks. I've been ok with paying up for it although not that thrilled when it eventually breaks down. It's best for people who break down their tanks every 2 years for a complete rescape; which I think is not a bad idea anyways.

 

[greenbliss]

Hi Darrel

I am faced with a confusing situation in my garden. When I was double digging beds for vegetables I dug through the top 60cm which was 15cm of black topsoil then compacted clay from an old riverbed full of pebbles the rest of the way but then underneath I found the blackest, most fertile looking clayey loamy soil and I'm wondering if this would be good and how on earth it ended up there?

Seems a bit odd because why is the most fertile stuff underneath???

 

[Onoma1]

Darell is the expert. My only comment would be to suggest going for a no dig approach. It means you can forget about double digging and focus on soil quality !

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

When I was double digging beds for vegetables I dug through the top 60cm which was 15cm of black topsoil then compacted clay from an old riverbed full of pebbles the rest of the way but then underneath I found the blackest, most fertile looking clayey loamy soil and I'm wondering if this would be good and how on earth it ended up there?

It sounds like they are a sequence of river deposits, probably as the river originally wandered over it flood plain. The deepest soil layer sounds like it was laid down in a fen or wet meadow. In undisturbed soils dark colour relates to the amount of organic matter and the darker the colour the wetter the environment it accumulated in was.

cheers Darrel

 

[greenbliss]

I’m

Hi all,

It sounds like they are a sequence of river deposits, probably as the river originally wandered over it flood plain. The deepest soil layer sounds like it was laid down in a fen or wet meadow. In undisturbed soils dark colour relates to the amount of organic matter and the darker the colour the wetter the environment it accumulated in was.

cheers Darrel

I wonder how deep it goes…

 

[greenbliss]

Darell is the expert. My only comment would be to suggest going for a no dig approach. It means you can forget about double digging and focus on soil quality !

I did that at first but I only had golf ball sized beetroot. I want to get rid of the stones and experiment with building back up soil that has been destroyed.

Although maybe I could just sow a cover crop and wait a few years for the soil to build back up to do that..

I imagined if I got my health back I would make literal tons of compost by picking seaweed from the polluted site (surely would be more nutrient rich from the overflow of sewage ), stinging nettles from local abandoned building sites, straw from farmers, vegetable peelings etc… as well as sowing cover crops to see how soil can be built back up.

Hard to find good manure recently

Obviously we have the thing about root exudates too which help feed the soil among many other things… I notice the worms in my garden are always around the roots of the plants when I harvest veg? @dw1305 any idea?

Also is it true if that the organic matter in capped soil creates CO2 which feeds the tank plants? I often see this repeated.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Obviously we have the thing about root exudates too which help feed the soil among many other things… I notice the worms in my garden are always around the roots of the plants when I harvest veg? @dw1305 any idea?

Exactly that I think, it is the exudates and sloughed off carbon (C) they are after, basically <"roots are leaky structures">.

Hard to find good manure recently

The location of the worms definitely suggests that there maybe a deficiency of organic matter. Are there any livery yards etc near you? They often stable horses on bark, or peat, now rather than straw, but they are all suitable. Cow manure is better composted, (unless it is very strawy).

I want to get rid of the stones

I'd probably leave most of them, they help with soil structure in clay soils. You might want to break up the clay and pebble layer and mix it into the rest of the soil profile.

My only comment would be to suggest going for a no dig approach. It means you can forget about double digging and focus on soil quality !

Once it was dug over, and the different layers mixed, I'd definitely leave it alone and just add organic material to the the top. Digging, or ploughing, is an <"intrinsically damaging process"> to soil structure, so we want to minimise it..

Also is it true if that the organic matter in capped soil creates CO2 which feeds the tank plants?

It will do, but again it would be dependent on <"enough oxygen diffusing into the substrate"> to support <"aerobic microbial activity"> ("organic degradation with free oxygen" in the image below).

You want zones of <"fluctuating REDOX (ORP) values"> in your substrate, these encourage microbial diversity and also make some nutrients more readily plant available.

I imagined if I got my health back I would make literal tons of compost by picking seaweed

Seaweed would be great (edit "for the garden"). Personally I'd be very wary of any <"easily oxidisable material in the substrate">, but I think adding some structural slow release organic matter, like<"leaf mold etc">, helps.

cheers Darrel

 

[greenbliss]

Hi all,

Exactly that I think, it is the exudates and sloughed off carbon (C) they are after, basically <"roots are leaky structures">.

The location of the worms definitely suggests that there maybe a deficiency of organic matter. Are there any livery yards etc near you? They often stable horses on bark, or peat, now rather than straw, but they are all suitable. Cow manure is better composted, (unless it is very strawy).

I'd probably leave most of them, they help with soil structure in clay soils. You might want to break up the clay and pebble layer and mix it into the rest of the soil profile.

Once it was dug over, and the different layers mixed, I'd definitely leave it alone and just add organic material to the the top. Digging, or ploughing, is an <"intrinsically damaging process"> to soil structure, so we want to minimise it..

It will do, but again it would be dependent on <"enough oxygen diffusing into the substrate"> to support <"aerobic microbial activity"> ("organic degradation with free oxygen" in the image below).

You want zones of <"fluctuating REDOX (ORP) values"> in your substrate, these encourage microbial diversity and also make some nutrients more readily plant available.

Seaweed would be great. Personally I'd be very wary of any <"easily oxidisable material in the substrate">, but I think adding some structural slow release organic matter, like<"leaf mold etc">, helps.

cheers Darrel

To be honest as far as gardening goes double dig seems decent the first few years, it does grow good parsnips and so on. I didn’t double dig this year and they weren’t as impressive or tasty actually (lacking micro nutrition, medicinal substances?)… I think this is the problem farmers/food growers doing what works vs scientists thinking they know but it no dig doesn’t always work. The stone layer is honestly impenetrable to roots, if I break it up I imagine deep rooted plants get through into the deep layers of the very rich subsoil and grow well.

Probably an organic matter deficiency in the top part of the soil. Compost making was more for the garden id think.

Double dig does yield more food from a small area, whether it is most nutritious I’m not sure but I think the first few years it’s not bad in some cases. After this I’ll do more cover crops and less potatoes to preserve the soil. Also if I break up the pebble layer which is honestly like concrete maybe the plants can draw up nutrition from the deeper fertile layer?

There is a channel on YouTube that makes fairly scientific comparisons of gardening methods and they find double dig and no dig works just as well.

It’s the argument of nature friendly vs intensive on small pieces of land.

As far as aquariums go that does make sense. I was thinking of the seaweed more for the garden though.



Also got this garden compost which I could add… next year I intend to make myself more as I said previously

For the aquariums id probably use the deep subsoil layer which is clayey loam.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I was thinking of the seaweed more for the garden though.

Thank-you I can see it is a bit ambiguous, so was I, I'll edit that bit to make that apparent.

cheers Darrel