Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The easiest way to add this incredible fertilizer to your garden
beds is to make it right where you want it used: in your beds.
Use a hoe to make a couple of one-foot-wide and six- to
nine-inch-deep trenches running the length of the bed. Place
dried branches, leaves, and other vegetable matter neatly, but
not too tightly packed, in the trenches. Then, light them on
fire in several places. (Avoid using chemicals such as
charcoal lighter or gasoline as these could seriously poison
the soil.) Once the material is burning well and the smoke has
turned gray, cover with the mounded-up soil on the sides of
the trenches to deprive it of oxygen, and let it smolder until
the pieces are no larger than a deck of cards. Then, douse the
embers with plentiful quantities of water. If you do this every
fall with garden refuse and other vegetable matter, you will
soon have soil that, taken together with the other practices
here, will have astonishing levels of productivity.
Cover Crops and Beneficial Microbes
Today we know a lot more than our great- grandparents did
about the relationship between plants and microorganisms in
the soil. It turns out that the microorganisms in soil are not
merely useful for suppressing diseases but actually an integral
part of a plant's root system.
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Up to 40% of the
carbohydrates that plants produce through photosynthesis are
actually transported to the root system and out into the soil to
feed microorganisms around the root system. In turn, these
microorganisms extend the plant's root system and make
necessary nutrients available.
Friendly microorganisms grow into the roots themselves,
setting up a mutually beneficial cooperation (symbiosis) and
respond with natural production of antibiotics when needed to
