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Re: Melsoil // My experience

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

If you have an empty bed, plant it to buckwheat, pull it out on flowering
and compost it, plant it again to buckwheat or some other cover crop.

The plants will capture solar energy and feed the soil life in the
rhizosphere (fancy talk for root zone) and serve as indicators to you of
over dryness, which will kill off alot of the microherd, which you want to
pertect...:-)

Or if you want to plant there in a few weeks, put a mulch on it after
watering well, and that will do ya too---even cardboard works.

Re peat vs cocopeat, we always used Fafard, at my grandpappy's house in Fort
Foote Maryland, and it is the brand Eliot Coleman likes, too.

Coco peat, if it is being shipped in from the Third World, may be
sustainably harvested but those places that export it likely need it more
than we do here in Canada, where coolish temps mean we are accumulating OM
faster than it is being consumed in the soil, unlike the tropics where
coconuts are grown, is how I understand it...so it may be a good deal for
the coconut plantation owners, but not for local tropical ecosystems.

That's how me and Uncle Eliot see it, I think.

Frank --likes his microherd under mulch, living or once living, iz
OK.....:-) keep em moist and well fed, and they will feed yer plants.....:-)

-----Original Message-----
From: Carolyne J. Butler <cjb@yup.com>
To: Square Foot Gardening List <sqft@listbot.com>
Date: Saturday, October 02, 1999 12:38 AM
Subject: Re: Melsoil // My experience


>Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html
>
>Patricia Santhuff wrote:
>>
>> Thanks, Frank. You're right about the watering issue. Of course, you
realize
>> there was no reason to water an empy bed, right? (And no, it shouldn't
have
>> been empty in the first place, but then I'm learning here -- and
perennially
>> a little short of time.) Who knew it'd be such a beast to water later?
Well,
>> I do now!
>
>It just occurred to me a few weeks ago that watering an empty bed
>during dry spells might be rather important. I can't know for sure,
>but Frank's microherd comes to mind. They'll need water even when
>there are no plants growing, won't they? I haven't gardened long enough
>to see if the principle about "feed the soil and the plants will
>feed you" works out IRL, but I'm hoping it's true, somewhere down
>the line. (Gotta start shovelin' more on this sand!)
>
>> And how does one go about checking / testing the quality of the peat
moss?
>
>Good question. Don't know the answer. My impression of peat moss
>and its drying out and shedding water is that it makes one a slave
>to watering extremely regularly, or else!
>
>I used coconut "peat" in place of peat moss for my first attempt at SFG
>this spring. (This stuff is packaged locally, and is also about 2/3
>the cost of the equivalent cubit feet of peat moss.) It's touted as
>being as good as peat and also a renewable resource. It also has to
>be soaked with copious water before using so as to be "reconstituted."
>(I had to use a garbage can for this.) But it hasn't shown any signs
>of shedding water like peat moss does, except that I also have a lot of
>vermiculite in the soil too, and sand sand sand, so maybe that explains
>why my beds soak up water like sponges. (They're also not raised, but
>an inch or two lower than the surrounding sand sand sand, which this
>year has been dry dry dry.)
>
>Anyway, after the first late spring flush of growth, everything went
>kla-phlooey and got stunted no matter what I did. The only plants
>that are still with me are some pepper plants, both bells and hot,
>and the hot ones have given me more peppers (from 2 habeneros, 1
>jalapeno, 1 cayenne type) than I can use for several years, even
>with us loving hot salsa and barbecue and other hot dishes.
>
>> I'm sold on square foot (tho not necessarily 4x4), and I'm sold on raised
>> beds. Especially once I learn to manage them! <g>
>
>I'm sold on beds that are never walked on and packed down.
>
>But with a knee injury this summer that brought an end to my getting
>down on my knees, or stooping, or even sitting on something low and
>having to stand up again, I've got to rethink my own four 4 x 8 beds.
>And I was already rethinking them before that. Four feet across is
>just too much for my shorter-than-Mel's arms.
>
>My beds are currently bare except for those peppers and some
>scraggly weeds and this summer's skeletons of a few failed "crops."
>But oh how we enjoyed those fresh veggies when they did produce!
>
>Carolyne (Florida Panhandle ... or maybe SANDhandle)
>
>--
>All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal
>than others. ~ George Orwell, Animal Farm
>
>
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