High quality soilsWASRe: Holy Organic

[Guest guest]

>

> >Heidi fireweed grows here too and becomes tumbling tumbleweeds

> >sometime during the fall windy season.

>

> Your fireweed must be something different ... ours is a tall

spindly thing with

> purple flowers (really pretty) and it wouldn't tumble.

>

XXXXXXXXXXXXxxAre you sure it won't tumble? watch it after it dries

and the in 40 mph winds. I'll watch for the purple flowers on these

here. Dennis Kemnitz

> > Our chickens are necessary

> >here to keep grasshoppers under control too. We're currently

trying

> >to ready an old silage chopper to chop weeds(green and brown) and

> >brown crop residue to make a large compost pile. I obviously

don't

> >have the weeds in control yet thru nutrient cycling and a healthy

> >soil food web.

>

> My experience with our weeds is that they like the same kinds of

soil as

> the " good " plants do. Most of our weeds are edible though, so one

solution

> would be to just eat them. It seems each spot on earth has plants

it " wants "

> to grow, so I try to stick to the plants that want to grow here.

>

> Our issues here are very different though ... we get too MUCH water,

> usually, so roots don't go very deep (or they would be immersed in

> the water table, which kills the plant).

XXXXXXXXXXXXImmersed in water would certainly be anaerobic

situation. Dennis Kemnitz.

Having too much water, just

> about any seed will sprout if there is a bare spot, plus the soil

> washes away. So the soil needs to be mulched, or have one species

take

> over the whole area.

>

>

>

> >I hope to compost prior to the weeds maturation. The

> >healthy soil food web allows the plants to thrive on less water

due

> >to much deeper roots,etc.We are having some success with

blackberries

> >and barley and yes, wheat. But we did take about 20 acres out of

> >wheat production relative the previous owner. And I only grow

around

> >40 bushels per acre instead of the NPK fertilized stuff which

yields

> >around 70 bushels per acre. I would bet the successful

permaculture

> >systems have a healthy soil food web.

>

> I think the permaculture success has a lot to do with the way

plants stake

> out their " own " territory if not disturbed. For instance, old

cedars shade out

> everyone else, and mint will form a dense cluster of roots such

that nothing

> else can grow (some plants also emit volatile compounds that act as

herbicides).

> Once the plants are established, they require little maintenance.

>

> I don't know about modern wheat, but bluegrass and the other grasses

> that used to inhabit " the grasslands " had really dense mats of

roots and

> composting old grass (the mats were up to 6 feet thick!) that held

water

> and nutrients.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXMaybe the Pawnee in KS planted in those mats in the

spring and came back to harvast a nice crop in the fall. Or perhaps

turned the mat over where they planted several seeds so the green

grass didn't choke the corn out.Dennis Kemnitz

They probably didn't produce so much grain. I'd bet there

> is a way to grow grain where you don't have to PLANT it every

year, just

> mow it, and let the roots keep the soil steady.

>

XXXXX Wes at the land institute in KS is trying to develop a

perennial along those lines. Dennis

> That would be my ideal ... you'd still need to add nutrients,

because when

> you take away the seed heads you are taking away minerals etc. from

> the ecosystem.

>

>

> >And our fresh warm (cow temp)

> >whole Brown swiss milk tested 10 on the refractometer today.

Cow's

> >been fresh for 2 mos. Dennis

Kemnitz

>

> Nice!

>

> -- Heidi Jean